


Primogeniture

by DanteBeatrice77



Category: Rizzoli & Isles
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:20:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 27,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26312530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DanteBeatrice77/pseuds/DanteBeatrice77
Summary: Maura wants something from Jane and thinks it's high time she got it. A series of one-shots.
Relationships: Maura Isles/Jane Rizzoli
Comments: 67
Kudos: 441





	1. Chapter 1

Maura Isles pokes her head around her desktop computer to make sure the coast is clear right outside her office. It's a precaution born of paranoia, really, because her monitor already faces away from either doorway and it has a privacy screen to protect personal information, but she can't help it. As the late afternoon sun juts through the window above her, sending shards of light against her face like it's trying to illuminate all her deep dark secrets, she gulps.

She's doing something that she knows she shouldn't be. She reminds herself as she takes a deep breath that the murder victim lying on her slab had two children with the help of fertility clinics, and thus the fact that the website for Boston IVF was open on her browser wasn't _so_ odd. She writes down several notes on a legal pad as her eyes dart back and forth.

She also reminds herself that she had told Jane only months ago that she wanted to freeze her eggs, to preserve her options. And when the Chief Medical Examiner routinely spends between ten and twelve hours at work everyday, she has every right to research all those options in the place she finds herself the most. _When else am I supposed to do it?_ She thinks to placate herself.

All these reminders don't lessen her anxiety, however, because those aren't the reasons she's anxious and feeling a little silly. _Preserving her options_ is not why she's looking at all the ways you could get pregnant without sleeping with someone who can impregnate you. Neither is context for understanding the woman she just sewed back together after methodically dismantling her piece by piece.

Maura is researching IVF because she wants a baby. And she supposes, as she runs a hand through perfect blonde-brown hair cascading down the back of her white doctor's coat, that in and of itself is not shameful. In fact, it's probably admirable. A high-powered medical professional, choosing to start a family on her own terms, with no partner and no intention of giving up her job? She would be the picture of the modern woman and all that that woman could achieve - yet another feather in her already decorated hat.

It's just that Maura wants a baby for a very pointed and specific reason that isn't acclaim or accomplishment. As flashes of Hope and Paddy run through her mind, her stomach turns a little bit and she, for the first time in her life, curses biology. Specifically _her_ biology - how could someone who believes so much in family and all that it means, all that it could give a child, be saddled with such unfamilial assholes for parents? All four of them? Not to mention the way her sister hates her. Maura wants to set things right and participate in a lineage. Properly. And there it is, at its core - Maura, as an Isles, and maybe as a Doyle, too, wants pedigree. Pedigree done right: superior nature to go with superior nurture - and that requires the family she's found, not the family that founded her.

Maura wants a _Rizzoli_ baby, is what she means. And maybe that shouldn't be so hefty an admission, so mortifying either, since she spends so much time with them. She loves them, and they love her. Maybe it would almost be natural for her to want to belong to them not just by claim but by flesh and blood grown inside of her own body. She contemplates Frankie and Tommy and how they would climb over each other to volunteer to be the father of her child, and how that might actually be the most domestic thing to happen to her. Again, objectively a good thing. But, Maura doesn't want that. She doesn't want to marry them and have kids with them. Either of them.

Maura wants to deliver the Rizzoli firstborn an heir.

It goes back to pedigree, she tells herself - she sees the Rizzolis, though they are of common and hearty Sicilian stock, as a one-of-a-kind genetic pool when it comes to compassion, kindness, and intimacy. Maura, too, is all those things, in addition to intellectually gifted, supremely intellectually gifted - she is also her parents' first. And so, Maura wants those things in double, and she also wants all the power, the respect for her baby that comes with bloodlines and birth order. She looks at Jane and sees prime progenitor material in a way that the Rizzoli brothers could never be. Of course there are similarities between the three of them - but neither Frankie or Tommy _touch_ her like Jane does. They don't drum fingers along the small of her back when she walks through doors they've opened for her. They don't hold an arm out for her when she walks through rugged terrain in heels. They don't run their open palms up and down her shirts when they hug her, like they want to take it off. They'd never get the chance - Jane would never let them. And she wants Jane to give her a child. She wants it _so bad_.

They are not together, and that makes it a uniquely awkward desire to have. She can't exactly come right out and say _H_ _i Jane, come over. Let me cook you a nice dinner and make your favorite dessert so you'll be pliant when I ask you to give me your children._ Not because she's sure of Jane's answer, but because she's unsure, and she simply doesn't _do_ uncertainty. So, Maura has a plan. It is a wild plan - and she needs to be armed with all possible scenarios and procedures before executing this reckless plot.

She reads up on all there is to know about reciprocal IVF: how the donating mother is screened mercilessly, how she is pumped full of hormones before the ova are extracted, how the carrying mother must align her cycle with her partner's in order to mirror the lining of her uterine wall so that the embryo takes. All very clinical, dry stuff. However, knowing all that clinical, dry stuff, is going to make her feel more prepared for the onslaught of questions she knows will come her way when she…. when she goes to Angela.

At first, she dismissed the thought as insane. Talk to Jane's mother about how she wants to have Jane's child? Before they're together? Before she talks to Jane? Crazy. But then… the idea became more preferable over time in comparison to attempting this talk with the one she loves. Quite simply, she needs allies. And who better than Angela, baby-crazy Angela, to fight alongside her in convincing Jane to make Maura's dreams a reality?

Maura shuts down her computer and grabs her bag on the way out the door. She has a dinner date.

* * *

"When you called me for dinner I thought something terrible had happened," Angela confesses, fingers fiddling with the pendant on her chest. She's wearing a button up pink shirt and skinny jeans, and Maura takes note of how good she looks for a woman nearing sixty. She wonders if that's heritable.

Maura herself wears her best - an embellished, short crepe couture Valentino, black with a black floral design that stretches from her ribs to her conservative neckline. The fabric of the garment reaches mid thigh and communicates everything she wants to: Black is serious, and all Rizzolis love her in black. What she wants to say is going to require that Angela both love her and take her seriously. The dress also shows enough of her tan legs ending in Louboutin heels and Maura can't decide if that part just makes her feel confident, or if there's some nebulous message about her fertility buried within the way her calves tighten and her ass firms up as she walks.

Either way it can only help. "What? Why?" She feigns relaxation well enough when she takes a sip of red wine at her dining table. She has made a filet with an asparagus salad that looks as complex as it tastes, it melts in the mouth, bursts with flavor when they sip the Cabernet that she has poured for them. It's a fancy meal that Angela would never make, that showcases her talents in the kitchen, and she chose it for a reason - to prove unequivocally that she can be a spouse that is not Jane's mother. Maybe that part's more for Jane than for Angela, who'd probably want all her children to marry someone like her.

"Because you sounded so serious," Angela laughs, "god this is good, Maura."

"Thank you," Maura dips her head demurely, and for a moment she is only having dinner with the woman who's been the truest mother to her.. "You deserve for someone to make you a nice meal every once in a while, Angela. You do it so often for everyone else."

Ok, maybe she's laying it on too thick, she thinks as she sees Angela's eyes start to dance in the light. She knows that dance, one equal parts mischief and deduction, the one she sees in Jane everyday. "Well," Angela begins as though she is formulating what she wants to say. She crosses her legs, leans back in her chair and apparently decides on a statement. "At least one of my kids thinks so."

Maura gulps. She knew before today that their relationship would make this easy, but also very hard. The stakes are high, of course. Angela could take this one of two ways: she could be elated, eager to help Maura, or she could recoil in misunderstanding and judgment. Maura doesn't think she can handle the latter, so she puts all her eggs in the basket of the former, and plans for every variable in order to raise the chances of success. "I know Jane thinks so, too."

Angela guffaws. "But she shouldn't be left in any kitchen unsupervised," she says. She takes another big gulp of wine and then takes Maura's hands in her own. "I appreciate you. I appreciate this. But why are we here? I know it's not just because you think I should get off my feet for a little while," those dancing eyes are on Maura again and they hold the doctor in place.

Maura's cheeks redden and her heartbeat quickens. Her body is alive with nervousness, but also with security in this moment because she knows that Angela won't let her fall. "I want to discuss something with you."

"Oh yeah? What's that?"

"I have a proposition that I believe would be in our mutual interest to achieve."

Maura shivers at the loss of contact when Angela lets her hands go and shifts her elbows to rest on the table instead. "Hmm. I'm definitely interested. Go on," Angela replies.

"If…" Maura begins, steadies herself, runs her thumb and forefinger around the stem of her wine glass, "If Lydia ends up having Frank's child and not Tommy's…"

"God, what a disgrace to our family," Angela groans, and Maura can tell that this truly hurts her, that the wound is still fresh. "I still can't believe he did this to us. Shamed us this way after all the good years we gave him."

"I don't see it as a disgrace," Maura says, and revises when Angela scoffs, "I mean, it doesn't make me think less of you, or your children. They are still as passionate, and proud, and kind as ever. They would never do what he did."

"They're good kids. Even when Tommy could be the father of Lydia's baby, they're good," Angela concedes.

"That's what I wanted to speak to you about," Maura chokes out, a little discombobulated by emotion.

"My kids?" Angela asks, "they love you, you know, Maura. All of them do."

Maura nods. She knows this to be true. "If it's Frank's," she reiterates, "I want to have your first grandchild."

Angela is floored. Tears shine over her eyes, unshed. She tries to resist a hopeful smile, but a small one comes anyway. "What?" Maura knows that this is probably the first time one of the four of them has ever willingly brought up grandchildren.

Maura sees her happiness and is emboldened. "Even if it isn't Frank's… I'd give you a second one."

"You…"

"I want to… this sounds strange, I know," Maura pushes forward, "I want to have a baby and I want it to be a Rizzoli."

"Which one?" After a few seconds of silence, Angela finally gathers some words, "It's Tommy, isn't it?"

Maura shakes her head. "No."

"Frankie?"

"Neither," Maura says and meets her gaze with intent.

"You're not with either of them? You haven't been with either of them?"

"No," Maura says, "I want a certain place for my child in the line of succession, so to speak. I want them to have certain birthrights, even if only in principle."

"I'm not following," Angela purses her lips in thought and sniffles as if she _is_ following.

"I want to share my child with your firstborn," this is as bluntly as Maura can put it. "I want my child to inherit all the privileges and honor that would come from being Jane's."

Angela's giddy smile is back again, though unrestrained this time. "You want Jane's baby," she whispers, as a statement and not a question.

Maura answers as if it were one anyway. "Yes, I do. Her… your genes are ideal. All of your children are healthy, strong. But more than that, they are the kindest, most genuine people I've ever met. And Jane is all of those things, plus this family's matriarch. No offense."

"No, no," Angela chuckles and waves her off, "she takes care of all of us. There are ways?" she asks, and Maura senses her hesitation, as if she should know that yes, there are ways.

"Yes," Maura says, "they can be a little painful for the egg donor. But it involves putting her ovum inside of me, along with a whole host of hormone cocktails. I want this child to be mine, too."

"So, do you want… more? Jane is a traditional girl, Maura. I don't think she's going to go for just-"

"Oh god, yes. Yes I want more," Maura nearly laughs at the thought that she would be using Jane only for her sex cells.

"Have you told her that?" Angela raises a brow.

"No, and that's why I need your help. She doesn't know and it's just too big of a risk to-"

"Hey Maura, I forgot that case file here last night and if Cavanaugh finds out I took it home-" Jane pushes through the front door then, keys jingling, announced only by the raspy boom of her evening voice, and Maura nearly chokes on her own saliva. She barely saves herself. The mortification itself _could_ be enough, however, to kill her all on its own. Of course Jane is here. "Did I uh, miss a dinner text?" Jane asks as she scrutinizes Maura and Angela together, steak half-eaten, clearly mid-conversation.

"No, Maura made dinner just for me," Angela says, an indulgent, decadent look on her face. Maura sees it as smug and she knows Jane does, too. "She said sometimes someone should cook for me, because I deserve it."

Jane walks over slowly, gingerly, sensing a trap. Maura feels as though she's the one who can't escape when she remembers that Jane is wearing the navy suit and black tee that she loves her in so much. "You do, Ma. You deserve to put your feet up and be doted on every once in a while."

Jane's smile is warm, close-lipped, her eyes crinkle on the sides and Maura is wet. It's as if her body is saying _this is what you wanted, right?_ She crosses her legs, doesn't get up from her seat.

"And yet you and your brothers never do," Angela chastises, "she's a good one, Janie. Too good for you."

Maura blushes and so does Jane. "I-I know," Jane says, stuttering. Her features turn serious and she nods.

"Don't screw it up." Angela rises from the table and takes one more hearty gulp of wine. "You two have something very important to discuss."

"We do?" asks Jane, "what kind of thing?"

Maura's spine turns cold with the sweat against it. This is definitely _not_ how she pictured achieving her goal.

Angela keeps it vague and saves her at least some embarrassment. "You just need to. And you better think long and hard about your answer because I'll kill you if you give her the wrong one." She points to Jane and then to Maura in her couture trappings. With as menacing a stare as she could muster, Angela watches Jane as she retreats, back first, toward the door to the courtyard.

When the door slams, Maura jumps. Then they are _alone_.

"Hi," says Jane, taking her mother's spot. She immediately starts cutting through the filet that Angela didn't finish.

"Hi," Maura says back, trying to keep the tremor out of her voice. "Long day?"

Jane takes the wine bottle across from her and pours herself a full glass. "What the hell was that all about?" she ignores the question with one of her own.

"Like your mother said," Maura shrugs, "I wanted to do something nice for her."

"She doesn't want me to analyze your culinary choices with you, Maura," Jane says, and there is an edge of warning in her voice. Maura knows that she is being warned against making Jane vulnerable.

"Are you sure?" Maura plays with Jane instead and uncrosses her legs. She leans in and offers Jane humor to make her more at ease.

"When she said she would kill me I could tell she meant it," Jane replies and pushes through. Maura is nervous and Jane sees it. She puts a hand on Maura's thigh. She's not looking at her fingers on Maura's skin, but she's not moving them either, not when she takes a bite of salad and not when Maura covers her hand with her own.

"I asked for her help with something," Maura whispers, undone by the lazy intimacy of Jane's touch and the way it's setting her on fire. "I asked for her help with something regarding you."

She loves and hates the way Jane stiffens - hates that it means Jane's heart might be retreating, loves the way the rigidity feels near her body. Their hands do not move as Jane continues to eat. "You conspirin' with my mother?" Jane asks.

"Yes," Maura admits shamelessly, "I tried to, anyway. Before you walked in. It was wrong of me, but I don't regret it."

"No? You should," Jane's voice drops on 'should,' into threat territory. When Maura sees the light in her eyes, however, she knows it's a salacious threat. "I don't like being manipulated," Jane finishes quietly.

"I know you don't. But I am afraid, Jane, and you know that Angela is always in my corner. I went to her because I felt like I could," Maura says.

"Why are you afraid? You know you can come to me with anything," Jane assures Maura as she removes her hand from her thigh and cuts off another piece of dinner.

"I'm afraid because I want it so bad - and it involves you," Maura replies. "And if I ask you, you're going to be afraid, too."

Now Jane is visibly nervous - her knee shakes, she sniffs noisily. "Did you tell her that we've been having sex?"

Ah, yes. That small detail. Maura hesitates even to factor it into the equation because it is the one thing that gives her hope, the way her best friend has been settling between her legs every night to banish the tension of the day. Her conundrum rears its head full force again when she wonders how to convince her best friend to become even more than _so much more_. "No, she doesn't know," Maura says.

"Then what's so bad that you have to go to Ma before you can come to me? You wanna _stop_ having sex?" Jane starts in indignance and unravels into panic by the end of her interrogation and up until that point, Maura hadn't known that the sound of a broken heart could be so titillating.

She reaches behind Jane to rub a thumb across the nape of her neck in comfort, attempting to soothe her. "No, definitely not. You promise just to listen to me? Keep an open mind?"

Jane is unsure, that much Maura can sense, but she manages to nod in assent. "Yeah," says Jane.

Maura steadies herself and then breathes out a meditative breath. A conscious one. Like she always does before she takes a giant leap. "I… I know I told you I was planning on freezing my eggs. But, I'm ready now - I want a baby," she whispers, beginning to cry. Jane hates when Maura cries, and Maura feels a little bit manipulative, but she can't help it. A few tears spill over of their own accord.

Jane's features take on a sumptuous melancholia as she pats her mouth with a napkin, nods in a slow, measured tempo. She is in agony and it makes her look adult, beautiful. "We uh, we never said we were exclusive, Maura. If you need to find someone who can give that to you, a guy who can treat you right, or at least be a, a cooperative sperm donor, then I'm not going to stand in the way of that." Jane is speaking into her mother's now nearly finished food.

Maura sees how upset Jane is under all that maturity and her skin sings with heat in response. She slides her plate in front of Jane so she can eat that, too. "I want a _Rizzoli_ baby. I want _your_ baby." Her confidence grows when Jane's fork clatters against the plate in surprise.

Jane's eyes are on her instantly. "Me?"

"Yes, you," Maura smiles crookedly. "Would you rather it be one of your brothers?"

Jane snarls. "Absolutely not," she responds. "Why me?"

Maura takes a sip. "Your impeccable genes," she answers simply.

"My long bones?" Jane quips, and Maura wants to lick the quirk of her eyebrow, dripping with good humor and sexuality.

"Among other things, yes," Maura says. "But Tommy and Frankie have those, too."

"Stop talking about sleeping with my brothers."

Maura laughs. Dear god she feels lighter with every word that Jane says. "You and I are firsts in line. There are certain responsibilities and rights that come with that, certain burdens, but you more than rise to the challenge. I want my child to be yours because I want them to grow up with you, to grow up knowing you."

"I can be Aunt Jane and still be around every day," Jane tries weakly, as though her accelerated heart rate isn't as obvious as her sly grin.

"Mmm," Maura hums as she nods her head, as though she's considering, "but I want you to be Mom Jane."

Jane is clearly pleased by this because her hand is back on Maura's thigh, and then she shifts her body in her chair so that she can touch the other one. She strokes her thumbs on the tops of Maura's legs now, and Maura opens them just enough for Jane to notice. "What makes me worthy of co-parenting _your_ kid?" Jane is quiet, small, and Maura realizes she's never loved anyone so much.

"It's not just because I want to give you an heir, you know," Maura's voice rumbles with a barely contained moan. "That's part of it. But, I have standards. My baby deserves, will deserve the best. And I've never met anyone better than you. _I_ deserve nothing less than that. They'd be my heir, too."

"You deserve everything you want, Maura," Jane chokes out, eyes between Maura's legs now, though black fabric is in the way. "And I want to give it to you, but I-"

"You need assurances," Maura finishes for her, "your mother said something to that effect. If you don't want to be this baby's parent, I won't have them. But if you do, I want to be more than just your best friend and more than just the person you're dating. I'd demand it."

"You realize we'd be going from friends that have sex sometimes to practically married."

"It's more than just sometimes, Jane," Maura quips. She takes note of the way that Jane's hands squeeze her, of the way Jane finally looks up into her eyes. "Recently it's been all the time."

Jane coughs. "Uh. Maybe I've been wanting a little more from us, too."

Maura is shocked by this, an admission she hadn't considered. "Yeah?"

"I, I'd get this feeling sometimes," Jane releases a shaky breath, "like I wanna get close enough to you that I forget we're two separate people. But lately it's all the time, and the only way I can scratch the itch-"

"Is to _be_ with me?" Maura supplies, speaking in euphemisms so that Jane won't take her hands off her.

"Yeah. And I think if we… if you and I got together, maybe, that would help. I was hoping you'd feel the same eventually, but I can't say I was ready for you to ask me to get you pregnant," says Jane, and they both laugh at her joke.

Maura puts a hand on her chest as she gathers herself. "If only it were that easy. I thought you would walk out on me over this."

Jane turns back to her food, and the tension in her shoulders that Maura wanted to rub away is mostly gone. "Nah. It's a little terrifying," she says, "but I'd give you anything you ask for."

"Anything you want, I can get it," Maura echoes Jane's claim from a few years ago.

"Exactly," Jane affirms. "You really want this?"

Maura considers what she should say. She considers hedging to make sure that Jane agrees. When she sees the sureness in Jane's posture and the openness in her shoulders, however, she realizes that she doesn't need to. "More than anything."

"Well, let's make ourselves a Rizzoli, then."

"Oh Jane," Maura melts; hearing it out loud so satisfying and so arousing, "really?" She is breathless.

"I mean not tomorrow, but, after we hash out details," Jane does hedge, and the fact that she thinks Maura wants it _tomorrow_ is so endearing.

"Months at least," Maura assures her, blushes when Jane fills her glass for her.

"I can do that," Jane releases a sigh that she didn't know she was trapping in her lungs. Then she restores her own self-confidence with a smirk and the way her eyebrows shift up and down, "wanna practice tonight?"

"You're very crass," Maura rolls her eyes, "maybe I should reconsider."

"You're very uptight," Jane chuckles, "but I'm all in."

Maura doesn't know if it's the clothes, or the food, or the way she tried to include Angela that was the most convincing. And she doesn't care.

Her children will be Jane's and Jane's will be hers.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lots of people asked for a second chapter, so I wrote one. Enjoy!

“I don’t know how to explain it,” Jane says as she lays in bed late at night. Her hands are behind her head and she’s flexing her bare feet up and down, watching how her toes splay. She can see the comforter between them. She looks like she’s avoiding eye contact, like she’s trying to take in everything but Maura next to her.

In reality, she’s _luxuriating._ There is a self-indulgent delight that takes hold of her and she can feel the shiver in her belly that comes with a serotonin dump. She’s tired, she’s still in her slacks and her t-shirt is still tucked in, but somehow the vision of her long torso next to Maura’s that is covered in only a sheet makes her very happy. There are a few other, adult feelings in her body as well, but she decides to take hold of the joy because it’s the strongest.

“You should try,” Maura says back, rubbing the last of some creamy lotion between her fingers, careful not to release the sheet that’s tucked under her arms. “Do you want me to help you?”

“Help me tell you how I feel?” Jane scoffs lightly, but then she turns to Maura and her crow’s feet burgeon with the beaming smile on her face. She can’t help it. “I don’t know if that’s how it works.”

“Contraction of your orbicularis oculi,” Maura replies, and her fingertip brushes near Jane’s temple, “and your zygomaticus.” The finger then travels down Jane’s face to touch her smile and Jane kisses it. 

“Well, why didn’t you lead with that? Now it’s _crystal_ clear,” Jane jokes, and when Maura moves away, she chases the contact, flips so that she’s on her hands and knees over Maura. Their faces are close and Jane’s gut is positively humming now. 

“You’re happy,” Maura whispers, and her low tone tells Jane she’s happy, too. And lustful. Jane likes this, and she would act on it if she could pull herself together. 

But she can’t yet – there’s all that beautiful emotion on her face again, the emotion that Maura reads so easily. “It… it worked?” Jane is incredulous, her voice breaks, the rasp tumbles out of her mouth and all around them. 

“It worked,” Maura smirks, “and I had an elaborate plan to tell you, too. But you were at the station so late…”

“It was perfect,” Jane shakes her head vigorously to banish Maura’s insecurity, and she kisses her lips this time. “It was perfect. I’m better at processing alone anyway. Why 9?”

On the bench at the foot of Maura’s king-sized bed is a tiny, navy blue, double-knit polyester jersey embroidered BOSTON on the front. And on the back is the Rizzoli surname stitched above the number 9, Jane’s favorite layering of red and white. Jane had brought it into the room with her at close to midnight, the fabric balled in her hands as they shook, and she’d placed it carefully where it now rests before kicking off her boots and climbing into bed. She’d found it draped over the writing desk where she puts her gun and badge every night and had bit her knuckle to keep from crying.

“Because the baby is due January 9th,” Maura shrugs, eyes serious and searching. 

Jane looks at Maura’s mouth, licks the crooked half-smile that’s only ever been directed her way. “You know, don’t you?”

“What?” Maura asks, her hands cupping Jane’s triceps to keep her from pulling away. “What do I know?”

“You know that’s Teddy Ballgame’s number,” Jane narrows her gaze and it’s razor dark. It’s not that she’s angry, but her blood is as hot as it would be if she were. 

“This pleases you,” Maura gives the game up and shifts her legs under the thin sheet between them. 

Jane hears the rustle and gulps slowly. Her larynx climbs and Maura catches it in her teeth, biting the skin of Jane’s throat and then licking it smooth. “That’s part of it, yeah,” Jane yelps; her hips fall on top of Maura’s and she begins a lazy grind. 

“What’s the rest?” Maura moans sharply when Jane’s belt buckle rubs between her legs over the bedclothes - she grabs it and starts to undo it.

“Really?” Jane asks in sarcasm. She is a woman of action and being asked to talk _now,_ of all times, flummoxes her. 

“Tell me,” Maura purrs, “tell me what’s making your heart sing right now. Tell me why you look so alive.” It’s rare that the Maura-the-poet emerges, but when she does, Jane melts. Maura has a knack for squeezing all of Jane’s tenderest parts into words and onto pages, and Jane is melting now. 

“Ah,” she clears her throat that has suddenly become cloudy with feeling, and she sniffs to keep tears in her eyes instead of on her cheeks, “I didn’t think it would mean this much to me.”

“Being a parent?” Maura asks. She is unbuttoning Jane’s pants and pulling her shirt out of its tuck. 

“You,” Jane says, the tremor in her words clearing up, “you having my kid. That’s my baby. In you.”

Maura laughs. “Yes,” she says simply. “It took quite a lot to get them there, but they’re there now.”

“Y-yeah,” Jane stutters with the comedic relief offered to her by the woman carrying her child. _Carrying her child_. “It hurt. I had a lump on my ass the size of a regulation baseball for about a week.”

Maura pouts in sympathy. “That part definitely wasn’t pleasant. I’m sorry. Thank you for going through that for me.”

“Uh uh,” Jane shakes her head, but lets Maura pull her t-shirt off of her body. “We’re a team now,” she nods to the jersey below them, “remember? Nobody’s doin’ anything _for_ anybody. We’re doin’ this _with_ each other. God, it should have been you from the beginning.” Maura looks appreciative but confused and Jane scrambles to elaborate. “ _Lydia_ beat us to it.”

Maura laughs, quietly but genuinely. “Beat us to having a baby?”

“Beat us to having the first one. It shoulda been team Rizzoli-Isles. Instead we got torched by tweedle-dee and tweedle-dumb,” Jane speaks the last sentence with her head now on Maura’s belly. There are no outward signs of her child growing inside of Maura yet, but she swears she can feel that they’re there. 

“Well…” Maura hesitates, and Jane chuckles at the equivocation that buzzes against her face, “maybe it’ll keep us humble. I don’t think your mother cares either way. That she’s going to go from no grandchildren to two in a year has already made her ecstatic. And besides, their road to becoming parents was a little bit easier than ours.”

Jane grumbles, turning her face fully into Maura, sheet sliding against her eyes, her nose, her mouth, tattooed with the smell of perfume. She grasps at Maura’s sides when she feels the softness of the skin beneath the scratch of cotton and she’s getting the urge to bleed their bodies together again. “TJ deserves better.”

“Jane,” Maura admonishes, but can’t help the smile on her face when she runs a hand through Jane’s wild black hair. “You’re just saying that because you’re a sore loser.”

“Maybe,” Jane replies. 

“Most definitely,” says Maura. “But, remember what I told you when I first asked you if we could do this? My baby deserves the best. And that’s _you_. I’d wait until we were the last ones if it meant that we did it the right way.”

“Our kid is gonna blow TJ outta the water,” Jane says through the blush on her cheeks. She snuggles closer to the woman below her and smiles, the way she knows makes Maura wet: wide, full of teeth and mischief. “Looks, smarts, talent, the whole nine.”

Maura widens her legs to fit Jane against her more deeply. “Oh most definitely,” she responds. “There will be no contest, even as cute as TJ is. You’re the rightful leader of this family for a reason.”

“Because I’m hot and smart and good in bed?” Jane chuckles. She turns her face to take Maura’s thumb into her mouth and sucks. 

Maura bites her lip in pleasure. “Because you have me,” she quips. 

Jane is shook. It is not the answer she’s expecting, but it’s the answer that drops her heartbeat into her pants. She slithers back up Maura’s form and lowers herself so that there is no space between them from pelvis to forehead. Maura’s hands hold her on each side of her head as they kiss.

Jane’s a good Maura-kisser. She knows this. She didn’t think of herself as particularly gifted before they had slept together, but now, she takes pride in being the best Maura’s had. They’re moving their lips forward, sucking, like many kisses they’ve each had before, but Jane knows how to pout just a little bit before she drops her tongue into Maura’s mouth, creating so much heavy pressure that Maura has to break them open and moan into Jane. Jane knows how to swallow that moan, then unite them again, the taste of it always better after she releases it back to its owner. Jane knows how to rock her hips between Maura’s just one time when they kiss faster and shorter and full of stickysweet passion. “You’re the best part of me,” she pants, knowing that compliments are always Maura’s favorite part of a kiss like this.

Her _absolute_ favorite part. She’s so appreciative that she kicks away the sheet between them and yanks Jane’s slacks down as far as they’ll go in their position. Jane takes pity on her – throws off her own pants and lacy underwear, unhooks her bra and tosses it to the floor. There’s a hiss from both of them when skin meets skin. “You deserve this. I want to give you this,” Maura mumbles on the verge of madness and Jane hears the way she wants her, the way she has to have her.

It is time. 

Jane still has her watch on when she slides her fingers into Maura’s wet heat; she hears it slap against Maura’s thigh as she begins to play. She curls her knuckles, flexes them, pulls them in and out and Maura sobs. They are both getting used to the feel of being together again when Jane latches her lips onto a nipple. This tips exploration into frenzy and soon they are writhing together in what can only be characterized as baby-making rhythm. “Shit,” curses Jane; Maura has just moved a thigh between her legs and she crosses her eyes at the feeling of it against her. 

“On top,” Maura chokes out, “I want to be on top.” Jane is impressed enough by her ability to speak a full sentence that she allows the change, allows Maura to flip them. Now she sits with her back against their pillows and Maura riding fingers in her lap. The sight itself nearly pulls her apart, but when Maura kisses her? Hard and wet and the perfect mirror of their union below? God, it’s good.

Everything about them is so good. The bouncing, the licking, the rubbing… Jane’s never been this dirty in bed with anyone else and she inhales deep, her nose to Maura’s sternum to make sure that it’s really happening. Her wrist is sore and her scar burns but she wants to see Maura through to the end. Apparently Maura wants to see her to the end, too, because suddenly her index finger finds exactly where Jane needs it to be. They heave and moan and sigh until they both come undone – Maura is shaking as her breath rattles between Jane’s lips. 

“Tommy’s an ass,” Jane is out of breath, too, and she wears that sexy asymmetric smirk again when she talks, “but he was right.”

“About what?” Maura asks with an absentminded nip at the skin on Jane’s shoulder. Her hair drapes over her face and against Jane’s cheek. It smells like cocoa butter and vanilla. 

“It’s better with your kid’s mom.”

“Ugh,” Maura rolls her eyes at Jane’s wry humor and she scoots to the other side of the bed.

Jane snatches her by the midsection before she can get too far away though. “Don’t leave me!” she shouts dramatically, eyes shut tight and smirk firm on her lips as she smashes her cheek against Maura’s spine. “It’s true.”

Maura makes a show of smacking a pillow into the right shape before settling on it. Jane feels the heat of a blush on Maura’s skin and she knows she’s had an effect, no matter how juvenile she’s being. “Your teasing is aggravating. But it’s precisely why I chose you. It’s _clearly_ a necessary skill for dealing with the family.” 

Jane is satisfied with this comment and burrows closer to Maura. There are a few moments of silence as she digests that Maura has called the Rizzolis _the family_ , and then there is the rumble of happiness hormone again. “You’re gonna be way better at this than me,” Jane finally says quietly.

Maura grabs Jane’s long fingers and squeezes them. “What do you mean?” she asks, sleep in her voice.

“At being a mom,” Jane answers. “You’re patient and smart,” she says, “and you’d give up the very expensive clothes on your back for any one of us.”

“You’d do the same for me,” Maura replies, “you’ve literally killed for me.” Jane hears the incredulousness there and shakes her head.

“Not the same,” she says, “kids don’t need people to murder serial killers for them.”

“Kids need parents who will vanquish their boogeymen,” Maura states with authority, “I never had that. Not until you came along.”

Jane thinks for a moment, feels her breathing regulate and the sweat on her limbs turn cool. “Kids need parents who can help them with their math homework and force them to apply to snooty colleges.”

Maura turns over then, slides off of her pillow and finds Jane’s eyes with her own. Jane puts her hands in Maura’s hair and loves how contrarian it looks, how defiantly different they seem together. “Kids need both,” Maura says. “Stop denigrating yourself.”

“Kids need parents who know big words like ‘denigrate,’” Jane huffs as she flops upwards and onto her back. Maura stays put and splays her fingers against Jane’s breastbone, scratching as she flattens and retracts them. Jane puts her own hand over them and sighs. 

“You’re only pretending you don’t know what that means,” Maura counters. “You like to say that you only went to community college, that you’re a blue collar Italian, that you’re a plumber’s daughter-”

“All of those things are true.”

“All of those things _are_ true, but none of them have any bearing on intelligence, even though you insinuate they do.”

“Let’s just agree that we both bring stuff to the table then, a’right?” Jane looks down with one eye open and a sheepish smile at having been caught. Maura’s lips are on her shoulder again. She quite likes the view.

“Alright. We should keep in mind who our real competition is anyway,” says Maura through a noisy nasal exhale and closed eyes. “We can’t get distracted.”

“Mmm,” Jane hums in agreement before she even realizes what she’s agreeing to, “wait, who?”

“Tommy and Lydia, of course,” Maura replies, as if it’s obvious. 

“Oh, yeah. Totally. Like I said, if we play our cards right, we’re leaving them in the dust,” Jane asserts with mock-gravity, brows knitted together and head nodding severely. 

“I’d expect nothing less from your child,” Maura says before she pulls in close and wraps Jane’s arm around her shoulders. 

“Yours either,” Jane says. She pulls up the covers around them before they both succumb to quiet laughter: tired, elated chuckles filling up the space around them with humor and hope. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Apparently I just can't leave this universe alone. :/ I've been working on something angsty and I keep coming back here to make me feel better, lmao. Also, it's been a while since I wrote Sicilian-speaking Jane, and I needed it. So here we are! Enjoy.

Maura tries to let the firm press of the hardwood floor on her back, mitigated by the soft cushion of the yoga mat material, calm her. Bring her stasis. The light from the late spring midday feels good on her feet and she wiggles her toes in the warmth. The nausea from the morning is finally dying down, helped in part by Ujjayi breathing and some good, old-fashioned mind-over-matter.

It’s definitely not being helped by the Rizzoli family grudge match that started in her kitchen and has since moved into the courtyard between the main house and the guest house. She had grabbed one of those Rizzolis before tempers flared into an inferno, and stolen away to the upstairs yoga room for some goddamn peace and quiet.

“Feelin’ better?” There’s a deep and sultry boom next to her head, and she turns, one eye open, to see Frankie’s face just a few inches from hers. He lies there opposite her, as though they’re the two hands of a clock, she pointing to twelve and he to six, the both of them meeting in the middle. 

“Mmmhmm,” she confirms, hands smoothing the soft fabric of her athletic shirt over her belly that’s barely starting to round. “Nausea’s gone. Although I’m starting to get a headache from your sister and your mother screaming at each other,” she snarks when she grabs his chin between her thumb and forefinger, “you’re all very pretty, but very, _very_ loud.” At that, they can both hear Angela and Jane just below the window, still going at it.

Frankie can’t help but guffaw. Loudly. Maura winces, but pats his cheek after she lets him go. “Sorry,” he apologizes, puts his hands on his own belly just like she does. Then he steals an apple slice from the plate next to him. “I’d tell them to keep it down, but I don’t think it’ll do much good.”

“I suppose this is a good microcosm of your entire life,” Maura replies as she smiles, both eyes closed again and one brow comically high. 

“Pretty much,” Frankie says. “When we were in high school, this was like every morning before breakfast. Except back then they were arguing about how many bones my sister broke in field hockey.”

“You know, not much has changed when I think about it,” Maura chuckles. “She and I still argue over breakfast about how many bones she’s broken. Thank you for riding it out with me. You look just like her but you’re a lot calmer. That’s what I need right now.”

Frankie looks down at his clothes, a white undershirt and some basketball shorts with a fresh pair of Nike white socks. _Just like Jane_ , unintentionally. He had happened to be showering in the guest house when the argument between Angela and Jane reached a crescendo. “No problem. I didn’t really have someone to hide away with when I was young. It’s the least I could do.”

“Maybe if they keep it up too much longer you can throw that dumbbell out the window at them,” Maura jokes. She points to the dainty set of pink 5 lb dumbbells in the corner.

Frankie shrugs in agreement. “That’d send a message.”

* * *

_“Carmine Edoardo,” Jane drawls, Italian pulling her voice into an impossibly deeper resonance. She is sitting in a dining room chair with her head up against Maura’s belly and Maura’s hand in her hair. She feels giggles bubbling up from within Maura’s chest._

_“Hell no, Jane,” Maura manages through bouts of laughter. She’s still in her heels and designer dress, having gone into the lab for a few hours on a Saturday morning, now anxious to get off her feet and into a chair to eat the meal Jane’s made for the both of them._

_“What?_ E picchì no? _” Jane pulls back and shouts in an exaggerated Sicilian, somehow managing a perfect, old accent. The couple beers she’s had since she got home from helping Tommy on a job may be facilitating it. She’s in one of Frankie’s crisp, new white t-shirts, ironed within an inch of its life, and green basketball shorts that say_ CELTICS _across the front of them from thigh to thigh. With white Nike crew socks and freshly showered, sun-kissed skin, she looks like her brother’s carbon copy. Or rather, his original._

_Maura shakes her head as she sits, absorbing it all. Jane looks so comfortable, wears comfort like it's so natural to her, in a way that it could never be for Maura. Maura wants her baby to have the confidence of owning all of Beacon Hill while dressed like they’re ready for a nap in the North End, just like this. She eventually takes Jane’s chin in her hand, thumb pressed against the dimple in it - Rizzolis have such grabbable faces. “Perché è un nome brutto,” she answers in a very nasally standard Italian, the only way she knows how, the only language she has a hold on that’s close enough to what Jane is wielding against her._

_“Nomu… ladiu…” Jane says painstakingly slowly into Maura’s still open mouth. When she feels Maura’s breath hitch she continues. “‘Ugly name.’ We gotta teach you some real Italian before this kid gets here. And no it’s not.”  
  
_ _Maura kisses her because it’s easy, because she’s so close, and because, duh, she’s speaking Sicilian. “It’s hideous. Edoardo, maybe, as a middle name, but I am_ not _naming my child Carmine. Ladiu.”_

_Jane chuckles. “See? Quick learner. Now you know about as many words as I do. Giacomo.”_

_“Are you picking awful names on purpose?” Maura asks as she glares, “Timothée.” She offers one of her own favorites as a counter in a beautiful and easygoing French._

_“Like that skinny kid in Dune? God no, Maura,” Jane shakes her head. Just as she opens her mouth, the door from the courtyard swings open, revealing Angela with bags of groceries in her arms. But it’s too late, Jane is already talking before she can stop herself. “Alessandro Vincenzo.”_

_Maura wrinkles her nose. “You’re getting closer, but no.” She doesn’t sense the seismic shift in the air._

_“What are you doing?” Angela asks quietly, shaken as she puts the paper bags on the counter._

_Jane watches her carefully, looks for any sudden moves. She doesn’t speak._

_Maura looks over at Angela. “We’re discussing baby names,” she says, ignoring Jane’s exaggerated shaking of the head and finger to the mouth. “Jane is coming up with horrible ones.”_

_“Alessandro is a boy’s name,” Angela says with a huge smile on her face. There’s the reaction Jane’s been anticipating. “Are you having a boy?”_

_“We have no idea what we’re having, Ma, you just happened to walk in on the boy part of the conversation,” Jane sighs, rubbing a hand over her face._

_“You know,” Angela starts, putting together her own sandwich from the fixings that Jane has left on the kitchen island. She pops a grape in her mouth from the fruit plate Tommy’s client had given them as a thank you for saving their water line and their front yard, used to the spoils that plumbers bring home from grateful homeowners. “It’s a tradition in your father’s family to name the firstborn son after the father, or a beloved brother. First and middle names.”_

_“No,” Jane says quickly, forcefully, not looking at her mother but smiling at Maura as the smaller woman ate. The nausea had been so bad the past couple of weeks that the fact that she’s even picking at her food is a minor miracle._

_“What do you mean, no? Why not?” Angela asks, and it’s the first time this afternoon that Maura_ notices. _The way Angela’s question is just on the edge of picking a fight, the way she’s muscling to get her way without really muscling._

_“Because,” Jane replies, drawing the word out as she turns dramatically to face her mother. “I got_ two _beloved brothers. Tell me what happens when I name the baby after one of them and then I gotta tell the other one why I didn’t pick him, huh?” She’s annoyed now, because it takes so little of her mother’s prying to get her annoyed. When the back door opens again, she snarls in its direction._

_“Ma, you gonna make that chicken?” Frankie asks unassumingly, also freshly bathed after a long shift at work, and then he sees his sister’s face. “I miss something?”_

_“See Janie, you can name him after Frankie, since he’s the only one without a child,” Angela points to her oldest son as if she’s just solved everyone’s problems. “Tommy’d understand that.”_

_“You’re having a boy?!” Frankie ignores his mother’s meddling and shouts his happy question at Jane, who until that very moment had stayed seated._

_She springs up then. “We’re not havin’ a boy!” She shouts as she stamps a foot; it makes a muffled thud when her sock hits the hardwood. “We don’t know what we’re having. All Maura and I were doin’ was discussing_ possible _names, Ma. That’s it. So everybody butt out.”_

_“Jane, I am your mother and that is my grandchild - I think I have a say…”_

_Maura stops listening midway through Angela’s frankly audacious argument, one she’d probably rebut if she weren’t so tired and her stomach weren’t so fickle. She picks up her plate, on it a sandwich and fruit combination perfectly, sweetly arranged for her by the woman she’s in love with, by the parent of her future child, but also by the person now shouting back at her child’s grandmother and making everything worse. She makes eye contact with Frankie and motions her head toward the stairs, and it doesn’t take him long before he steals his mother’s forgotten food and bounds up behind her._

_They end up in the yoga room, and Maura tells him to guard her lunch while she changes into something comfortable._

* * *

“You probably should have just picked a name, instead of telling Ma you were thinking about them,” Frankie continues. He doesn’t look over at her, but he knows his ribbing does the trick when Maura sighs next to him.

“ _Now_ you tell me,” She replies. She turns her head to look at him again, and their eyes meet this time. He really is very pretty. His hair is freshly styled and his stubble freshly shaved. She sees Jane’s eyes in his dancing coffee brown ones and she knocks their foreheads together to see if it feels the same. It doesn’t, but it’s close enough, friendly. Brotherly.

“To be fair, I think I did tell you when you and Jane were going through the girl list last week,” he smirks. 

“You did?” Maura’s forehead crinkles in confusion until she lights up with memory. “You did. I remember now.”

“You could just save us all some trouble and name him Francis,” Frankie says, and uses Maura’s favorite wry grin.

She laughs with him and touches his face with both hands now. “Absolutely not, Frankie,” she warns.

“Can’t blame a guy for tryin’, right?” Frankie reasons, and then turns his head back up to look at the light fixture on the ceiling. 

“No, I guess I can’t,” Maura says. She thinks for a moment, indulges the fantasy of a son: a boy raven-haired and long-bodied like his Rizzoli mother and uncles, but with her intellect inside of him. She imagines him obsessed with baseball and winning prizes in physics, or a star point guard in high school with an academic scholarship to Stanford. She can’t pretend to know the gender of her child, or what they will like, or how they will behave. She can’t will them to be handsome or capable or healthy. But, she can bestow upon them their name and a good home. She likes to think she’s already given them the most precious of gifts in Jane and the man laying next to her.

Frankie must see the tears swimming just behind her lashes because he headbutts her softly to let her know that he’s still there. Something Jane would have done if it were her up here instead of her little brother. “Let’s see what they’re saying, huh? Tommy and I used to play this game. Who could make out what insults Janie is hurtling the best.”

Maura nods swiftly and repeatedly to keep from crying. “Ok. To be honest all I hear is yelling,” she tries to laugh, but gulps down a sob instead, even through the broad smile on her face. 

“Well, let’s cheat then,” he says as he hops up on the balls of his feet and then crawls to the window. He pops it open as quietly as he can.

“Oh Frankie, don’t! They’ll hear us,” Maura laughs for real this time, throaty and wet.

“So? I’ll tell ‘em you needed some air cause all their yelling was giving you a migraine,” he answers. He leans his back up against the wall under the window and pulls his plate to him, taking a huge bite of the turkey on wheat his Ma is so good at making. 

Maura crawls over and joins him, nibbling on her own food, straightening her legs out. Frankie pats her knee; flexes his large, sock-covered foot next to her small, naked one, and she flexes back. “I still can’t make it out,” she whispers around a mouthful of ham and Swiss, a craving she never thought she’d have but reminded her of Paris.

Frankie cups his ear with his hand and cranes his neck towards the window. “That’s cause they’re speaking Italian now,” he says. “Want me to translate?”

“Do you know it? Just repeat what they’re saying,” Maura tells herself she wants to hear him speak it for ethnographic reasons, to hear as many instances of it as she can, but it’s really so that she can compare him to Jane.

“Janie’s the best one at this, but none of us are very good. I’ll try; lemme see,” he replies, not very confident but game for anything. “Ma’s saying something about _fammigghia_ and _usanza-_ ”

“Family and tradition,” they both say at once and he flashes her a handsome grin.

“Not bad, genius,” Frankie says as he squeezes her fingers and then goes back to his post. “Jane just said ‘ _ah, manuggia,’_ which is like ‘god dammit.’”

“Your mother probably isn’t going to take that well,” Maura comments, and Frankie chuckles.

“Nah, probably not,” he agrees. “She's saying ‘ _mi mustra rispettu’_ \- show me some respect, I’m your mother.” They both wince in sympathy for Jane.

Maura heard Jane’s voice carry loud and firm in return, and say something completely unrecognizable to her. Then Angela is crying and yelling something back, and it’s in English, but she can’t make it out because it’s distorted by tears. When she looks at Frankie for help, he’s white as a sheet. “What did Jane say? Frankie?”

“You, uh, you guys aren’t married yet, are you?” Frankie asks her, stutters.

“No,” Maura is confused; she draws out the vowel in no. “Frankie, what did she say?”

“She said, ‘ _mugghieri mia, picciriddu miu, nomu miu._ End of story.’ My wife, my baby, my name. And now Ma thinks you guys eloped. That’s why she’s upset,” Frankie utters these words quietly, reverently. He sighs, and says his next statement soberly. “I’d be upset, too, you know. If I didn’t get to be a part of your special day.”

Maura’s heart grows wide enough to fit him inside. She loves him, kisses the side of his loyal head, but she has to see the scene for herself, cover be damned. Jane is down below, hugging her mother, clearly annoyed still, but her circles on Angela’s back are benevolent ones.

“Jesus, Ma.” Maura hears now that her face is to the screen, “it just came out like that. You know what I meant. And you know I’m too Catholic to elope. I wouldn’t do that to you,” Jane says, and it’s so true. Maura’s pagan, French sensibilities will have to be bestowed upon their child in other ways, because Jane’s Christian Italian lineage needs a name that continues to reflect it.

Suddenly, Frankie doesn’t know if Maura is struck with epiphany, or is gonna be sick, or both, but she is running out the doorway and down the stairs. He gets up, shoves his feet into his slides that he’d left just outside the room, and jogs after her. “Maura, what’s wrong?” He calls, but she’s already in the courtyard.

“Cristiano,” she says to both Jane and Angela, out of breath, “ _Cristiano Francesco,_ and that’s final.”

Jane drops her arms from around Angela and stares at Maura with narrowed eyes. She’s looking for weakness, for the name to be just a way to placate her mother and stop their argument, but all she sees is Maura’s typical refined resolution. And when Maura’s made up her mind, Jane never fights her on it. She knows it’s futile. “Ok,” she says. “I kinda like it.”

Angela had stopped crying, but finds herself tearing up again. “It’s beautiful, honey,” she says when she looks at Maura, when she goes to her and kisses the side of her head.

Frankie’s leaning against the threshold, shifting his gaze between them and blushing. He catches Jane looking back at him, the both of them matching in a way only they could, a way that would look planned to anyone else. They share a private smile, and then he speaks. “So... what if it’s a girl?”

All three women scoff as they start filing back into the main house. Jane smacks him on the back of his head. In the end, they love him anyway.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh man. We're back. This chapter is a little naughtier than the previous three, but with everything going on in the hellscape that is 2020, I needed some fluff. I hope it cheers you up, too. Enjoy!

Maura is sweating in an ancient apartment building in Back Bay at 8AM, writhing in discomfort at the beads trickling down her back. She would admit that the exertion of climbing five flights of stairs while five months pregnant - with no air conditioning, late in the month of August - was not something she'd considered when planning motherhood. She thinks she looks afright, honey hair pulled back not by design but by necessity, latex gloves sticking to her swollen hands despite the talcum inside. She's in a flowy, loose fitting dress she thinks looks dumpy, even if it has a skirt that twirls and leaves speckles of her perfume in the air. She's chosen it partly because of the heat and partly because she refuses to wear maternity clothes just yet. At least the tall, strappy heels make her feel more normal.

Meanwhile, standing over their victim in a sheen of moisture and good looks is Jane Rizzoli: tall, thin, statuesque Jane Rizzoli in a light gray suit and the prettiest glisten that Maura has ever seen on a person. And next to her is tan-skinned, tattooed, beautiful new homicide detective Riley Cooper. "Looks like someone was having a little too much fun," Jane says conspiratorially to Riley, who snorts with barely contained chortles. She shoves Jane with the back of her latex-covered wrist and Maura wants to scream.

Jane, because of Riley's… _complicated_ relationship with Detective Frost, has taken Riley under her wing, is showing her the ropes. They laugh openly now over the body of a man who clearly died during sex. Maura won't know anything until he is back in her morgue (and in the glory of air conditioning), of course, but she is so sticky and uncomfortable that she's this close to guessing he suffered a heart attack.

Jane tasks her with being as thorough as possible (as if she would be anything but), because the detectives can't find whoever he was having sex with and that automatically makes them suspicious.

"We need to find out who supplied that fun. Who runs when the person they're in bed with has a heart attack? Seems weird." Riley finally says, hands on her hips. She's in a suit, too, a dark one, and when Maura looks up she sees the feminine curvature of her neck from where her long brown hair has been pulled away.

Jane stands next to Riley on the side of the bed opposite Maura, and Maura, with the way she is bent, has a direct view of their hands. Not touching, but the point is that they _could_ be, that's how close they are. Jane reaches right in front of Riley, brushing her shirt with her forearm, to grab a picture from the nightstand by the bed. In it is the decedent and a woman about his age. "Girlfriend, maybe?" asks Riley.

Jane is thinking and she has her sultry Detective Rizzoli face on. Maura doesn't need the distraction or the extra warmth, but it presses against her pelvic floor anyway. "Maybe," says Jane in reply to her partner, "but if it is a girlfriend and that's who he was sleeping with, don't you think _she'd_ be the one calling this in? Not the cleaning lady?"

Maura swears she sees Riley shift her hips with the same attraction that has coiled in her own body, probably because Jane is so damn good at her job. She glares at the new detective pointedly. "Can you move your conjecture somewhere else?" she asks. "It's distracting me, and the quicker I can catalogue here, the quicker I can move this man to the lab and begin the autopsy. In air conditioning."

Jane smirks and it travels to her dark eyes. "Sure, babe. C'mon Coop, show me what you found in the medicine cabinet."

Maura _hates_ when Jane calls Riley 'Coop.' Maura also knows that she shouldn't hate it, but when Jane hovers protectively behind Riley as they move toward the apartment's bathroom, she burns with anger.

* * *

"This is my job! How long have we been working together? How long have you known that when I'm on call I could get a body at any time of the day or night?!" Thirteen hours later, Jane is back in a fresh suit, standing in the walk-up of her new suburban house, facing its colonial columns and wide open red front door. She's got her hands thrown out wide at her sides and she's shouting.

At Maura. Maura, who stands in a satin nightgown chosen because of the way Jane likes to slide her hands on the floral pattern, also wraps a cardigan around her arms because of the way pregnancy fucks with her blood pressure. There are tears running down her face even though she's angry, and she wipes at them with her hands. "I just don't understand why they can't call someone else! You've taken the last three, all with Riley!"

At that moment, she notices, through bleary eyes, their two next door neighbors trying and failing to hide behind their SUV with their phones out. She thinks she hears the man say "we gotta get a little closer," but she's not sure.

"Or…." Jane clearly hears it, too, because she whips around and points at the guy with the iphone sideways in his hand, "Or! You could just mind your business and go back inside! Before I arrest you for filming without consent!" She turns back to Maura. "I gotta go to work," she growls, "I really don't have time for this."

The insinuation that their argument isn't worth the time, that Jane would rather be at work, vexes Maura. "Oh? Because Riley doesn't want you to be late?" She yells through the moisture in her voice, "God forbid you keep your new girlfriend waiting!"

Jane pulls back in indignation, truly shocked. "Maura, what the hell."

Maura's hot now, though, livid, and she blasts past Jane's expression. "Are you two sleeping together?" She asks loudly, and even though Jane has threatened them with arrest, she can hear the neighbors rustling excitedly at her accusation. "Because it really seems like you're sleeping together."

"What? No! You're having my _baby_. Any time, really, but especially now, would be a shitty time to cheat," Jane says, and she walks over to Maura slowly, afraid to upset her further. "Why would you say that?"

"I see the way that you are with her! The way your banter is so easy and the way you… you're so gentle with her! And I see how she looks at you - it's the way I look at you," Maura trails off and looks to the porch under her feet. She's rapidly realizing her mistake - the detectives' chemistry isn't about _Jane's_ feelings at all.

"She's green as hell. I have to treat her with kid gloves - she doesn't know what she's doing yet," Jane's voice is deep and raspy and reassuring. She finally bridges the gap between them and rubs her hands over Maura's arms vigorously because Maura likes it when she does that. "I love _you_."

Maura sighs, revels in the touch. "I know. But I'm bloated and moody and constantly eating," she whines, "and you have a beautiful, thin, very sexual new partner. Who seems like she would be very nice to sleep with," she states her fears but also, just maybe, tries to trap Jane into agreeing with her. Apparently she can't help herself.

Jane almost laughs because at nearly six months pregnant, Maura hardly looks different except for the moderate round of her stomach. Of course she's a cute, petite pregnant lady and of course she thinks she's a mess. "Maura. We're having sex all the time," she reasons, gesturing between them with her left hand.

Maura rolls her eyes and keeps them up, dabbing them with the tissue balled in her hand. She gets quiet because she's being silly. "But that doesn't mean that you particularly enjoy it. Or that you aren't also sleeping with Riley."

Jane chuckles at the irrationality of it all and pulls Maura into a hug. After a few seconds of swaying in the yellow of their porchlight, they kiss, Maura sucking at her lower lip desperately. "Baby," Jane pleads, "don't I put it down every night? Don't I beat it up?"

Maura scoffs and laces her fingers behind Jane's neck. "Well, which is it, North End?" she teases, having taken to calling Jane that when she uses colloquialisms Maura doesn't understand. "Up or down?"

"It's whichever way you want it," answers Jane.

Maura likes this response and her mood completely shifts, again. She slides her fingers between Jane's belt and slacks.

Jane groans. "Maura.. I really do gotta go."

"I know I was being irrational and mean just now," Maura whispers, her throat elongated and open as she cranes it to look Jane in the eye, "can I make it up to you?"

Jane is jerked forward by the hips when Maura tugs. "Crime scenes don't wait, not that long. When I get back?" she asks weakly.

Maura looks at her watch, still on her wrist because this fight started when they were preparing for bed. "It's nine now. By the time you, the AME, and the techs all are done, it will probably be well past eleven."

Jane nods sadly. "You'll be asleep."

Maura purses her lips in thought. "I could try to stay up. If you promise to 'put it down,'" she winks.

Jane puts her hand over her heart. "I do so solemnly swear." She fishes her car keys out of her pocket and turns toward the driveway.

"Tell the detectives I said hi," Maura requests as she laughs openly.

Jane senses her in and grins. "Even Riley?"

"Even Riley," confirms Maura.

"Will do," Jane starts seriously, "but only after she and I are done knockin' boots."

Maura looks horrified. "Jane!"

"Gotta go! Love you!" Jane calls out behind her shoulder as she steps into the driver's side.

Maura shakes her head, but waves anyway as Jane pulls away.

* * *

Maura loves the way Jane's body feels against her, especially her abdomen, when they make love like this. Their sweat lubricates every touch as they rock together, back and forth, back and forth, Jane so deep inside, so hard against the growing softness of Maura's belly.

She loves the way they kiss, open and wet and sweet. She doesn't speak; Jane is pulling at her tongue and nipping at her lips so much that she couldn't if she tried. She has her hands in Jane's wild hair as she's being filled both above and below, wrapping her legs tight around Jane's hips and the leather strapped to them.

Jane is putting it down and Maura is taking it all up, squeezing in the way Jane loves, giving her the resistance that Jane can't help but moan at. Jane is moaning into her mouth now, weak, wanting, hands suddenly all over Maura's body. Maura knows what Jane craves, and she breaks their kiss only to say, "let me take care of you."

Jane rolls over with her arms up above her head and bent at the elbow, and she watches with lust as Maura climbs on top. They're still united, but this time Maura slips a hand between them and begins a slow grind. Maura is clutching Jane inside again, yoga having strengthened the muscles in between her thighs, and then she is pulling, pushing, dragging, rotating, all with the dance of her hips. Jane throws her head back and whines until she comes.

Maura slows her own body until Jane has stopped shuddering, and then she smiles down at her handiwork. "Come back to me," she whispers, stroking her thumbs over the jut of Jane's ribs, exaggerated by ragged breaths.

Jane blinks and rolls her eyes around, finally meeting Maura's gaze after lingering at their wet connection, at her breasts, at her lips. "I'm back," she says, her voice hoarse.

"Good," Maura states primly, "because I need you."

This spurs Jane's muscles into movement. She flips them so that she is back on top and then Maura is holding on tight, riding her wave again. "I love you, I love you, I love you," says Jane over and over against the shell of her ear. She finds a rhythm that makes Maura's nails drag down her back and soon, with a little help of Jane's thumb between them, Maura gets what she needs and lets her body unravel.

Jane flops onto her back when Maura gives her the signal: it's always the same one, a soft bite against the skin between her jaw and her neck, a supple plea to pull out because Maura has had her fill. She only realizes that they are lying sideways on their bed when she reaches for a pillow and there isn't one. Somehow, though, there is a crisp white sheet draped over the both of them from their waists to their calves, and it makes Jane's eyes heavy with sleep. "You know," she says with a lazy grin on her face and one eye open, "Riley doesn't do half the stuff you do with that pretty thing between your legs."

Maura pulls the sheet up to cover her chest and smacks Jane's shoulder. "You better not be doing that with anybody else. Specifically that." She turns on her side to glare at Jane, referring to the way Jane dips and thrusts just to the left enough to make her scream, "that better be just for me."

"Ow," Jane complains as she rubs the smarting skin on her arm, "it's all just for you."

They lie in the dim glow of the nightlight Maura plugs in every night that Jane works late, not talking for long stretches of time, struggling to stay awake too much longer, but neither wanting the moment to slip away. Maura lays supine again, close enough to Jane that their shoulders brush. She takes Jane's left hand in her right, lacing their fingers together, and places it on her belly over the sheet. "I can hear you thinking from all the way over here," she says, running her flat palm from Jane's fingertips to her forearm.

"To be fair, you're only like half a foot away," Jane kids.

Maura can feel a searching gaze on her, but she continues to rub lightly with her eyes closed, trying to memorize Jane's hair pattern, the trail of her veins, the round of her knuckles. "Don't deflect," she says.

"I think," Jane utters, "we should get married."

Maura's eyes fly open then. She interweaves her fingers with Jane's again just to ground herself. "Right now?" she gulps.

"No," Jane assures her. "No, it can be after the baby. But you can't keep feeling like this. I wanna belong to you and I want you to know it."

Maura is moved and brings Jane to her. When Jane snuggles close and inhales deeply at her sternum, Maura kisses the top of her head several times. "You promise?"

"I promise," says Jane. "I better mean it, too. I bought a house with you." Her words are muffled by the way Maura's arm cradles her. "A big ass house."

Maura chuckles. "A mortgage is pretty serious business."

"I'll say. My paycheck is still cryin'," Jane mumbles. She is drifting.

"Jane?" Maura calls for her softly.

"Yeah?"

"This doesn't count as a proposal. You better do it the right way," she warns, and then she is crushed in a hug, arms firm around her back.

"Don't worry, I will," Jane assures her, "I've got plenty of ideas."


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I wait on pins and needles for these election results, all I've been doing is writing. I present to you one of the fruits of my labor. :)

Maura opens the door of her home, grateful for the cool October breeze that hits her, and for the handsome profile of Detective Barry Frost as he stares off the side of her front porch to the flowers down below. "Hi, Barry," she says with a smile.

He returns it with one of his own, and it makes his light brown eyes shine. His biceps strain against the sleeves of his gray v-neck t-shirt, no doubt from the weight of the toolbox in his hands. It's red, but there are dings on it that expose the silver of the metal below and rust on its hinges from age. "Hey Maura," he says in his smooth baritone, turning to face her fully now. He clearly can't help it when he glances at her belly, but it's just a quick look down, and then he speaks again, eye contact restored. "Where's the leak?"

Maura can't help looking down at herself when he does. She supposes that she does appear a little more pregnant now than she usually does at work, in yoga leggings and a loose white v-neck like his, her hair pulled away from her forehead and her neck by a silk, no doubt designer, bandana. "Our bathroom," she replies, "please come in. Thank you for doing this, by the way."

Frost follows her and whistles in a deep pitch when he enters the foyer. "Maura, this house really is something. I can't believe I haven't been by."

He takes in the white paint, picture frames lining the walls on either side of them just inside the doorway, pokes his head to the left to see a spacious dining room with a huge oak table with seating for ten. Of course it's decorated as if it belongs in a Pottery Barn catalogue, with a navy runner adorned by large white candles and floral arrangements matching the season. And of course, to the right, there's a cozy living area with wall-to-wall white built-in bookcases, a picture window with two padded armchairs, and a fireplace on the opposite side.

"Thank you," Maura says brightly, clearly pleased with his approval. "I've been cleaning all day, but if you forgive the mess, I can give you a very thorough tour."

Frost guffaws. "Cleaning what? There ain't a thing out of place," when he says this, Maura blushes. "In fact, I can't even really picture Jane living here. It's right out of a magazine."

Maura can see what he means when she surveys their surroundings. She'd convinced Jane to let her design the interior of the front rooms, given that they would be the ones people see the most. Jane had agreed easily. Less work for her. "There are more traces of her upstairs. Let's start in the reading room?"

"Let's." Frost has both sets of fingers on the hefty handle of his box as he walks. "I always wanted one of my own."

Maura smirks at him. "The built-ins were a must for me," she explains as he stands in front of them.

"Classic," Frost says, leaning forward to read the diverse array of titles. Jane's many histories of Boston baseball and a few more titles on her secret pet interest, witches in Colonial New England, litter shelves not dominated by medical journals, forensic textbooks, and mystery novels. "I love them."

"Exquisite, aren't they?" Maura says, standing next to him with her palms on her lower back to banish away some of the pain there. "They're original." She feels comfortable gushing with him, knowing that he shares her interest in interior design, and design in general. It's a fact she was delighted to learn about him.

They move through the dining room and then the immaculate white kitchen, with sprawling counters and huge island in its center. "Totally modern," Frost admires, "the white really bridges the then and the now."

"I would agree!" Maura exclaims. "Timeless." After they exit the kitchen, they cross back to the right side of the house so that Frost can see Maura's office and the laundry room with a door to the backyard. "Upstairs?" she asks as he finishes his circular walking pattern around the washer and dryer.

"Lead the way," he affirms, and fingers the ornate banister as he ascends. The sun from the hall windows upstairs, glowing orange in the midafternoon, casts a serene light against the original wood floors that lead to the bedrooms on either side of the staircase. Maura takes him left first, towards two rooms and a small bathroom on the other side. She opens the door to one of the bedrooms and Frost whistles again, rubbing a palm over the waves in his very short hair. He's taken to growing the top out just enough to form them, and the sides of his head are still tightly shaven. Maura thinks he looks very handsome as he peruses this space.

There's a desk in front of another picture window, facing the doorway, fitted with a luxurious leather office chair. The walls are painted navy and Red Sox memorabilia covers all of them. He steps in with reverence, smiling to himself at the framed ticket stubs, at the baseballs in shadow boxes with players' signatures so old even he doesn't recognize them, at the pennants near the ceiling on either side. Above the window, and thus above the head of the desk, is a mounted black bat, signed by many players on the 2004 World Series team. The only non-exclusively Red Sox item is the framed print of the DiMaggio brothers in black and white by the bookshelf in the corner. "Jane's office," Maura supplies while Frost peers at the commandeered case files spread across the desk's top.

"You don't say," he teases, twisting his finger in the air to emphasize all the things around them. "She shouldn't have these, by the way," he says of the files.

"I know nothing," says Maura as she shrugs playfully. "Come see the other two guest bedrooms and then I can take you to the main."

Frost chuckles and figures if Maura has deniability, then so does he. He marvels at the elegant simplicity of the two guest rooms, one with a pair of Frankie's jeans folded on the bedspread and a few of his books on the bedside table. If Maura is perturbed by the loose change on the dresser or the running shoes at the foot of the bed, she doesn't betray it, but Frost thinks that maybe she quite likes the way there are mementos of him throughout, including a closet half-full of his clothes.

Angela Rizzoli clearly uses the next room from time to time, and Frost knows not because anything is displaced, but because it smells like the perfume he always catches in the cafe, and there is a distinctly Italian doily on the small table next to a rocking chair. He smirks when he remembers his conversation with Jane about how maybe Black families and Sicilian families weren't so different, considering their grandmothers seemed to have identical taste in decorating.

However, the most striking thing about the room is all the baby paraphernalia: a crib right next to the rocking chair, a tiny bookshelf already stocked with children's literature of all kinds, gender neutral toys organized neatly by category, and a changing table against the window that oversees the backyard.

For Frost, at least, the concept that Jane is about to be a parent finally becomes _real_. The concept that Maura, standing next to him with her hand kindly on his tricep, is going to be her co-parent, is also real. He suddenly feels very old and very young simultaneously. He wonders what Jane feels every time she walks into this room, the baby's eventual room, but he thinks he has an idea of what she feels every time she looks at Maura, pregnant with their child. She may have told him as much.

When they reach the main bedroom, he blushes because now it's Jane's perfume that he smells, even though she's not here. It's subtle and mixes with Maura's more floral scent, and once upon a time, its androgynous lavender notes would have quickened his heartbeat for her. Now he feels a mixture of warmth and embarrassment for invading her most private space, but he pushes that down, knowing he has a job to do. His palms are sweating as he begins to scan the layout, memorize the furniture while the box in his grip grows heavy.

Nothing incriminating or salacious lies out of place, of course, but he feels weird being an adult so close to another adult's marriage bed, so to speak. Jane's got VapoRub and two or three watches next to the lamp on her nightstand, and a book about Salem earmarked where she left off. There's also an open pack of gum: cinnamon, Jane's favorite. Maura's nightstand has various lotions and skincare products, artfully arranged so as to look like they came with the thing. "So…" he begins awkwardly, hoping that she doesn't notice that he's looking at everything a little _too_ closely, "this room is phenomenal. Your use of space is really smart."

Maura nods her head. "Thank you. The most I could get Jane to say about it is that there are way too many throw pillows."

Frost clicks his tongue. "Totally disagree. Any fewer and the bed would look too small."

"You know it's not too late. Jane and I aren't married - I could kick her out and move you in. Live with someone who appreciates this place," Maura jokes, and he laughs.

"I could never afford this place," Frost says as his giggles and his nervousness die down. He feels less duplicitous. "I'm surprised even a lead detective can."

Maura nods. "I made a sizeable down payment. Enough to make the mortgage manageable for Jane. She pays it on her own; you know she'd never let me buy it outright, even though I could."

"Yeah," Frost agrees, and for a moment they both think on her stubbornness. "Still wouldn't be manageable for a junior detective, though."

"You've got time," Maura says as she squeezes the hard muscle of his shoulder.

"Sure do," he responds. "I plan to get promoted quicker than she did."

"She would like that," Maura smiles.

"Wanna show me that leak?" Frost finally says, after long seconds of silence.

"Oh yes, it's the tub. Normally I would just have her do it, but…"

"She's not here," Frost finishes for her. He walks into the bathroom and sets his toolbox down next to him.

"Right. And of course it started as soon as she was on the road. But when she said you knew a bit of plumbing and that I could call you, well, I figured, why wait?" Maura reasons as she rests her shoulder against the threshold to watch him work.

"My Dad traveled so much for work that Mom and I had to get pretty proficient at household stuff," explains Frost, "we were dirt poor. I liked plumbing the best, so I got pretty good at it. I just don't really mention it to Jane often because she's… well…"

"Territorial?" Maura returns his favor from before, finishes his statement.

"Somethin' like that," he answers. "Turn on the water for me? Then I got this from here."

* * *

Frost had managed to find the source of the leak and fix it, but not before he had unleashed a torrent of water into the tub while he stood inside. Now, he's relaxing in the reading area in the front of the house with Maura, beer in hand, while his socks tumble in the dryer and his Nikes air out on the back porch. "So, when does baby daddy get home?"

Maura's head rests against the back of the chair, the throw blanket that was draped on it now over her legs. Her eyes stay closed as she turns toward Frost. "Could be this evening, could be tomorrow," she says as though she is practicing yogic breathing, and Frost stifles a laugh at her seeming frustration. "I had to send baby daddy and the other Rizzolis away for a weekend. She was driving me crazy. They were driving me crazy. It was making my already bad heartburn even worse."

"Heartburn, huh? That baby's gonna be born with lots of hair. I'm envisioning just a shock of black all over that tiny head," Frost uses his hand to circle the top of his head, drawing attention to his hair.

"That's a myth," replies Maura. "Plus, why do you think they'll have black hair like Jane? We chose a donor with similar features to mine, too."

"C'mon, Maura," Frost scoffs good-naturedly. "Of course they're gonna look like Jane."

"How could you possibly know?" Maura scoffs, too, her mouth open in a surprised grin.

Suddenly Frost turns red. "Uh, well, because you love her so much. Y'all have like… an epic love. A forever love."

"Yes," Maura looks to her own hands bashfully, but agrees with him on that point. On its extrapolation, though, she's confused. "What on Earth does that have to do with how they look?"

"Wait," Frost leans toward her, "you've never heard that?" She shakes her head and he scratches his chin. "Maybe it's not a white thing. But my aunts used to say that babies come out lookin' exactly like… well, like their daddy the more… the more mom is in love. But I guess that's silly in your guys' case, now that I say it out loud."

"Well, it's entirely unscientific. To begin with, she's not their father, and I'm not in love with their father. But to tell you the truth, I think they'll look like Jane, too."

"Oh yeah? What's your evidence, Dr. Isles?"

"The Rizzoli phenotype is very dominant," Maura says matter-of-factly. "Have you seen them all? They look exactly alike, and they act exactly alike. They nearly drove me to drinking the past few weeks."

"So you banished them to Maine?" Frost asks.

"That's where Jane's great aunt lives. They've been promising her that they're going to visit for years now, and so I finally made them," she replies, looking a little enviously at his beer.

He notices and puts it on the small stand between them. "I'm sure they were overbearing, but I think they were just scared because you fainted, Maura," he says softly, seriously.

"I know," she acknowledges, "I know. But only because I was anemic. _Am_ anemic. I tried explaining how normal that can be during pregnancy…"

"But they went into protect mode," Frost says.

"Yes. Which normally I like about them," Maura qualifies. "But the hovering, especially at work, and the chaperone for everything from my morning run to trips to the bathroom was too much." She smooths the fabric over her growing belly and folds her hands over it, feeling her heart rate finally drop again. Sleep tugs at her.

"To be fair, you fainted at work when no one was around," Frost picks up his beer and sips it again.

Maura's lips quirk up in a smile despite her tiredness. Perhaps a nap, a short one, would do her good. "I should have known you'd take her side. It's what makes you excellent partners."

"Yeah well, you guys make excellent partners, too," he says sweetly, and she opens her eyes then to see how pretty it makes him. She is not disappointed when he smirks with his lips closed and when his eyes crinkle with mirth. "I would say I'm shocked that you convinced them all to go, but I'm not really."

"I have my ways," says Maura. She smirks, too, and there is a playful wickedness in it.

Frost snorts. "Same way you convinced Jane to buy this house?"

"Same way, different position," Maura teases, a poised and manicured finger in the air.

Frost's belly hurts when he is done laughing, and Maura is giggling next to him, just as tickled by her own words. Then there is a long silence between them, and Frost wonders if Maura has truly dozed off. He rubs his sweaty palms against the denim of his jeans and darts his eyes around when he is sure that she isn't looking at him. His phone buzzes in his pocket and it's nearly the death of him, but when he peeks over to see if Maura has stirred at his jumpiness, he is relieved. She hasn't. He pulls out his phone and reads the message, then slides it back where it belongs. "Hey, uh, Maura?" he whispers, "I'm gonna check on my socks and then give the upstairs one last once over, ok?"

"Mmhmm," she answers, and he's not sure if she actually heard him, but that's even better. He gets up on his bare feet and tiptoes out of the room so as not to disturb her.

* * *

Maura, even in pregnancy, maybe especially in pregnancy, is a light sleeper. However, she appreciates Frost's ham-handed attempts at quiet. He opens the dryer and slams it shut down the hall, and then she swears she hears the door to the backyard open as well, but he sounds like he's at least trying to keep it down. She didn't think that his shoes would already be dry, but he didn't have her head for thermal physics, so maybe he wanted to check just to make sure. She keeps her eyes closed, unwilling to cease her flirtation with sleep even though it seems to be fading, and she hopes that she may just convince it to come back to her when she hears the groan of hardwood near the stairs and then his socked feet shuffling further and further away. There are two sets of steps, as if he's decided he missed something in the laundry room and makes to circle back, but then thinks better of it and swivels on his heels towards his intended destination again. It's the only explanation she can think of as to why, for a split second, it sounds as if there are two people in the hall.

Finally, a little bit of oblivion seeps into her limbs, and they relax as she flexes her toes, crosses her ankles, and laces her fingers together. She nestles closer to the side of the chair, the perfect angle for her to rest her head - she is just about to turn off her brain, when she hears it:

"Maura!" Frost's voice is muffled by a labyrinth of doors and walls and hallways, but it still booms. "Maura, can you come up here? I need you to take a look at something for me!" he shouts.

"Coming!" Maura calls back, tossing the throw to the side. She jogs up the stairs, more awake now, wondering what Frost needs from her that he couldn't take care of himself. There's a strange incandescence coming from the main bedroom; she notices it as she reaches the hallway to the right, but she chalks it up to the setting of the sun coming through her open curtains.

She gasps, her hand over her gaping mouth, when she sees its actual cause.

There are rose petals leading to the bed and many more on it, and there are several strands of fairy lights pinned above the headboard, woven around a string of pictures of herself and Jane, alternating with ultrasound clips of their baby, all held up by tiny clothespins.

But more captivating than all of the _things_ in the room is Jane, in a flowy silk white button up paired with one of her nicer, tailored back suits. She is seated on the bench at the foot of their bed, Oxford shoe heel occasionally clacking against the wood floor as her knee bounces. Her hand is in her wild black hair, running through it, and she is flushed.

"Hey," she says softly, in a rasp that divulges her anxiety. "So I know I'm not supposed to be back yet, and uh, I know you needed some you-time... but this was the perfect opportunity for a surprise and I couldn't pass it up. Frost helped," she rambles, motioning behind her to the petals and the picture display.

Somehow, either she or Frost have also smuggled the good serving tray from the kitchen, and Maura sees it now, in the middle of the bed, on it two bottles in a champagne bucket and two flutes awaiting a pour.

Maura's hand is still over her mouth, frozen, and tears begin to trickle into the grooves of her fingers when Jane gets on one knee. "I..." Jane starts, and then shakes her head, already tamping down on her emotion. "I used to never think this was for me," she says. "The house, the relationship, the kids. I always thought that I'd never find someone who could love me enough to put up with how much I love my job. But..." she pauses, swallowing thickly, clearing her throat with a hum. "Ugh, mmm. But then I meet you, and not only do you love your job just as much, you love me, too. And you just _give_ it to me. Everything I thought I couldn't have, you know? And for a while I was so afraid that if I did get it, somethin' would happen and I'd sabotage it, or I'd lose it, and that'd hurt worse than never having it at all. But I was wrong, Maura, because I would do anything to keep you safe, to keep us safe, to keep our baby safe. I swear I would bareknuckle box Satan himself for this family," she pauses, a few tears having escaped, but then both she and Maura release a shaky laugh at her statement. Maura hiccups to stifle a sob and Jane continues, pulling a ring box out of her blazer pocket and opening it. "And I know how lucky I am. I know I'll never find this again. I'd be a dumbass to try and look. So, uh, will you marry me? So that I don't have to pretend I don't need you?"

Maura sob-laughs again, but this time she is nodding furiously, too moved to speak. Jane rises and covers the distance between them in three long strides, sliding the ring on Maura's finger, and then they are kissing repeatedly, desperately, passionately, with that wet smack that Maura loves to hear. "Mmm," she finally vocalizes, "stop."

At the insistent murmur against her lips, Jane obeys, eyes clouded with confusion.

"I didn't even get a good look at it," Maura replies, and puts her hand to Jane's chest to admire the ring. It has one large diamond in the middle, and three smaller ones on each side of it within a band of white gold. It looks beautiful and it looks expensive. She plans to ask about that later but refuses to ruin the moment. She settles for, "you did very well."

"Thanks," Jane replies coolly. "Good thing I know your taste. If you hated it, I was just gonna take you back to exchange it for another one anyway."

"No need," Maura says as she sniffles, regaining some decorum. "So Barry was in on it?"

"The whole time. Carried in everything except the champagne, which I had in a backpack. Let me in through the back door. Family's in on it, too. They're waitin' in the car to hear your answer and hopefully eat dinner with us… if you can stand 'em for that long."

Maura kisses Jane again slowly. She closes her eyes and puts her hand on Jane's cheek, noting the smell of saltwater still in her hair from the Maine coast. All of her annoyance has dissipated. "I suppose I could tolerate them for a night. Should we free Barry from his prison?" She points toward the closed bathroom door where they can both hear the heat fan from the other side.

"Frost!" Jane shouts, and Maura jumps. "It's over, get out here!"

He swings the door open dramatically, all sweaty and smiling. "Well?! Are we drinkin'? Or are we _drinkin'?_ " He asks, eyeing the tray on the bed.

"We…" Jane exaggerates, motioning between him and herself, "are drinkin'. _Maura_ is not. Unfortunately."

Maura can't even be bothered to pout as she pulls the sparkling cider out of the ice; she's too happy to mourn the very expensive champagne next to it. Still, she can't help but rib them a bit for the massive wool they pulled over her eyes today. "There better be a chilled bottle of that waiting for me _as soon_ as I have this baby," she says sternly. "It's the least you could do. And I mean on ice, in the hospital room."

Jane smirks, takes the cider out of Maura's hands, and pours some into a flute for her. Then she pops open the champagne. "There's a clean cup in the bathroom on one of the shelves, Frost," she nods toward his former hiding spot, still shaky as she steadies the bottle against her own glass. Frost trots back into the restroom and pulls the cup out of the vanity. He holds it out and Jane gives him a hefty serving.

"Cheers, guys. Couldn't have happened to two better people," he says, clearing his throat to avoid crying. "Not sure how it worked out that I was the one to help you with all this, Jane, but I'm not gonna question the universe."

"We've come a long way from the early days, huh BBK?" Jane replies affectionately, her hand on his shoulder. He nods and the three of them clink their drinks together.

After a moment, Maura is already fiddling with the ring on her left hand with her thumb in habit. "How'd you do it? Did it just happen to come together this way? Was the tub leak truly that serendipitous?"

Jane blushes. "Nope," she admits around a hefty gulp. "Been plannin' since you told me you were forcing me to take time off to see Aunt Gina. Me and Frost decided that I would remove one of the rubber washers in the faucet just as I was leavin' Thursday. And _then_ , I could casually mention that he did plumbing work and you'd give him a call. Conveniently, he would have Saturday afternoon free to help you."

"You are devious, both of you," Maura scowls. Soon though, the scowl breaks into a wide grin. Neither Frost nor Jane deny it. "Should we go downstairs and decide what to order for dinner? I'm sure your mother and brothers also want to stretch their legs after a two-hour drive."

"Sure, why not," Jane says through a sarcastic smile. "I guess we can let 'em in on it."

Maura rolls her eyes but leads the way down the stairs.

"You know, Jane," Frost begins, side by side with his partner as they make their way to the stairs, "Maura's eye for detail is second to none. You really oughta appreciate the beauty of what she's done with the place, throw pillows and all."

Jane sticks her hands in her pockets and trots down the staircase, perfectly in step with him. "I know, partner. Believe me, I do."


	6. Chapter 6

"I can't believe Dr. Rodin just quit," Maura sniffles behind her hands, but her French accent is impeccable even through tears.

"Wow, with a month left? What a bitch," Angela says as she pats Maura's knee. She, Maura, and Jane are in the living room, the former two seated on the couch against the wall, facing the now blank big screen television. There's a fire going below the TV to keep them warm, but they've forgotten in the midst of their current crisis.

Well, Jane hasn't. She holds up her rigid hands to it, hoping for relief, however minor, from the ache in their palms. "Ma," she chastises, throwing her head back. "She didn't just quit. She had to go back to Canada for a family emergency. Her dad had a stroke."

"Oh. Well still," Angela shrugs. Anyone causing Maura this much pain deserves to be called a bitch, even if their poor father had suffered a stroke. "She left you two high and dry."

"I'm supposed to have a check-up in three days and it's almost Christmas!" Maura wails, "there's no way I can find a replacement in time!"

"Oh Maura," Angela says as she pulls her into an embrace. "They haven't hired anybody to replace her?"

Jane turns around fully now and slices at her throat with her index finger vigorously. Maura sobs again. "That's the thing. She's not sure if or when she's coming back, so the entire practice is on hold," she mourns, and Jane sighs. "The other obstetricians at the hospital are seeing her caseload, but I don't know any of them."

"I told you I was takin' care of it," Jane finally takes a seat on Maura's other side and holds her hand out. It should now be warm enough for Maura to squeeze without whiteout pain, so she tests that theory by spreading her fingers wide for Maura to lace her own through. The twinge in Jane's scar isn't so bad when Maura does take them, at least something she can handle. "I mean, at least she called you personally to let you know. A lotta doctors would just leave that up to their office."

"She was one of the best on the eastern seaboard," Maura says glumly. She recovers just a bit of decorum and sits up by her own power, choosing not to dwell on the wet spot on the breast of Angela's sweater that she's left there. "It will take weeks to find candidates as good as her and narrow it down to one."

"Well, you're probably right, but I've got a good gut instinct about these things. Just trust me," Jane pleads, her face serious and kind.

"We can't just leave the health of our baby to your gut," Maura smiles sadly. Jane is trying valiantly to cheer her up, but to suggest flying by the seat of your pants for something this monumental? Honestly, madness. There's no way.

"Sure we can. Like I said, it's a good one," Jane reiterates.

"Janie, cut it out. You're making her nervous," Angela whispers harshly over Maura's head. "Listen, Maura, honey. We'll figure something out. Your network has other doctors we can try, I'm sure."

Just then, on a late and rainy December evening, the doorbell to their colonial-style fortress rings out. It jolts both Angela and Maura, expecting no one at nine PM on a Saturday evening. "Who's that?" Angela grabs onto Maura again, looking right at Jane.

Jane gets up, all shadows and angles in the light of the fire. She rolls her shoulders back under her own black sweater, runs a hand through her hair, and then finally sticks both of them in the pockets of her light gray slacks. She looks refined and comfortable. Completely in control, even in just her dress socks. This makes both Angela and Maura suddenly suspicious. "Me," Jane answers anyway, "takin' care of it."

She walks out of the room and down the hall to the front door, and sighs one time as if to ready herself. She becomes _Detective Rizzoli_ , and then turns the doorknob. "Hope," she greets the woman on the porch, "it's cold. Come in."

Dr. Hope Martin enters, all accoutrements and class, just like Maura, and even though the storm outside threatens to blow entire towns down, the only sign of it on her is a few droplets on the shoulder of her Burberry coat. "Jane, hi. You have a beautiful home."

"Thanks," says Jane, holding out a hand. Hope hands her the coat, but keeps her purse, her right hand fiddling with the straps of it. "We're in the TV room. I'll show you."

"Alright," Hope agrees, following Jane. When Jane walks so confidently back into the living room, Hope falters. Her relationship with Maura has greatly improved since finding out that she was Hope and Paddy's child - but what she's been summoned for requires a new level of trust altogether.

Jane looks back, and can see Hope steeling herself for the imminent interaction, with its possible rejection and likely tears. "Just be yourself, ok? You're the expert, no matter how much she would like to think she is. Whatever she says, you're here to convince her of that," Jane says, putting a hand on Hope's shoulder and squeezing it softly.

They are just outside of the entrance to the room and Hope smiles timidly. "I'll do my best," she says, and then they enter, Jane first as if to protect her.

"Hey Maura," Jane calls, her voice quiet enough to be interrupted by the crackle of the fire. Maura is looking at her, had been waiting for her to explain the late visitor, but then her eyes land on Hope and stay there. "Hope's here to see you."

Angela stands and gives her daughter a proud smile. She pats Jane's cheek with an open palm because it's so pattable and she's so darn _smart_. "I'm gonna make us some tea," Angela announces, and then she's leaving for the kitchen.

Hope takes her place on the couch, careful not to disturb pillows and the throw on the back of it. "I am very sorry to hear about Dr. Rodin. She is one of the best," she says, looking down at Maura's hand, flat on the cushion, wanting to put her own on top of it.

Maura twitches just slightly and she takes it as permission. When she feels it under her own, Maura's fingers are swollen and warm. The rough edge of her engagement ring creates a pleasant friction on the palm of Hope's hand. "Her father had a right hemisphere stroke. Fairly massive, from what she told me over the phone," Maura says, swallowing the rest of her crying jag away. By the end of her sentence, she sounds more normal.

Hope nods. "She told me during grand rounds at Mass General. I told her that she should be with her family."

Maura wants to take this as a personal affront, but she doesn't because she knows it was the right thing to say. "I'm going to call her in a few days to check in on his condition. I know that a CVA can be devastating, even if it's relatively minor."

"That's kind of you. But I must confess that I'm here because my main priority is you, not Dr. Rodin," Hope explains, curling her fingers into Maura's hand, delighted when Maura turns it and squeezes.

"Me?" she asks quietly, finally looking Hope in the face.

"Yes. How are you doing?" Hope asks confidently.

"I'm… the pregnancy is unremarkable, in terms of any complications. So far, my only issues have been awful nausea, which has since resolved, and anemia, which I continue to monitor," Maura says like a doctor, knowing what a doctor would want to hear. She closes her eyes to concentrate on the feel of her biological mother's hand in her own, it's soft skin and deft fingers, that like her own, wield scalpels and forceps, and any other manner of medical equipment with precision.

"That's good to hear," Hope replies honestly. "But how are you _feeling_? As a human being."

Maura thinks. Jane is lurking somewhere on the edges of this conversation, with her hands in front of the fire, but listening. They talk all the time about how she feels, sure, but Hope is a _doctor_. Many of the things she could say she chooses not to share with Jane because they are related to the stress of knowing what she does as a physician. But, as she turns and sees Jane standing there, back ramrod straight and palms facing the flames, she sees a safe place. The safest place she's known. And somehow, Jane knew that she would need to talk to a doctor tonight. "I feel very upset. I know that Dr. Rodin is doing what any logical human being would do in her very unfortunate situation. But I can't help but feel, irrationally, like Jane and I have been betrayed. Cast aside."

Hope sets her purse down and crosses her legs. "It would be hard not to. You've been left in a very tricky predicament. Even if it's not her fault."

Jane _is_ listening, and this is the clinician she wanted here. Hope is a counselor in the way that Maura isn't, in a way that Maura doesn't have to be because all of Maura's patients are dead. But all of Hope's patients are alive, and so often their pregnancies are burdened by factors of poverty, violence, racism - all intertwined factors that Maura will never have to face, not as a mother and not as a doctor. All of it has sharpened Hope's clinical acumen.

Jane has asked Hope to propose something wild to Maura, and Hope is teeing up the question masterfully.

"Thank you," Maura says, using the back of her free hand to dab at her eyes. The crying is mostly over. "I'm also just tired. My body is tired, and achy, and sore, but I'm also tired of the constant worry - I know the statistics for all manner of birth defects and congenital disorders, and I know that my chances are much lower because of my money, and my race, and my being one parent in a two parent home. But that doesn't mean it can't happen, and all the worry has me _so_ tired."

Hope laughs softly, though she doesn't mean to. "Oh honey. I'm going to be very honest with you. The constant worry doesn't stop once your baby is born. It's going to continue until the day you stop breathing. But, as a mother, I can commiserate. It is very exhausting."

Maura blushes. She's not sure why she hasn't thought of that before, but all of Hope's words ring true. "I suppose you're right."

Angela returns just in time with a tray full of tea mugs and a kettle. "She is right. Now, try not to imagine that your baby grows up to be a cop who is allergic to self-preservation," she says, looking pointedly at Jane, who has turned around. "That's even worse."

"Wow, thanks Ma," Jane snarks, but takes the teacup anyway. It's the perfect temperature, piping hot, and her first sip is a good one.

"You're lucky I haven't had a heart attack, Jane," Angela stands firm. "Between you and Frankie I should have had at least a couple."

Maura and Hope watch the exchange with private smiles. Soon, Hope is watching Maura watch the Rizzolis, taking note of the tired happiness of her grin, the joy in the crease of her eyes, the love in the way she has moved her body to face them completely - a display of open and vulnerable trust. She decides that she wants that from Maura, too. And maybe, after all these years of not knowing her, all these months of not knowing what to think of her, and then of loving her, Jane's way is best.

"Maura," she says, more like a question than anything else.

Maura's reverie is broken at least for the moment, and she turns back to Hope. "Yes?"

"I'm here because…" Hope starts, but then she falters when she realizes the weight of what she is about to say, and how it can disrupt the delicate peace that has just taken over the room.

Jane steps in, puts her cup on a coaster on the coffee table in front of them, and seats herself on the arm of the couch just behind Maura. She rubs her shoulder, fingers moving in circles against an oversized, cable knit cardigan, and Maura faces to her. "I, uh, I asked her to come. We're desperate, Maura. We have literal weeks until this baby comes and no real options for a doctor. Except…"

Maura's eyes go wide. She knows now what Jane is saying, why Jane has arranged this meeting. "Except?" she wants to make her say it, to make her own it.

"Except that Hope is one of the best OB/GYNs in Boston. You said it yourself a hundred times," Jane does own it. Jane meets her blow for blow and glance for glance, because she's convinced her idea is a good one. "Let her deliver this baby for us."

"No," Maura's answer is immediate, and she cringes to herself. Maybe a little too immediate, because it is obvious that even then, Jane and Hope have sensed an opening.

"Why not?" Jane is brusque and combative, even if lovingly so, and Maura rolls her eyes. This could easily escalate into an argument.

"Think of my qualifications. I have more board certifications that Dr. Rodin, and I have admitting privileges at Mass General. Your hospital." Hope is subtler, kinder. Her hand is back on Maura, this time her knee.

Maura considers this. Hope does have quite the list of accomplishments. "You're my mother," she says.

"That's true. But not in the way that most mothers are to their children. At least not yet," Hope dangles glittering visions of possible futures in front of Maura, knowing it would be hard to resist. "And I have delivered thousands of children, Maura. All over the world."

Sarajevo, Colombia, Guatemala, Mozambique, England. To name only a few places. "Your experience is extensive," Maura concedes.

"And Mass General's delivery ward is state of the art. The team there is highly qualified and highly competent. I've delivered nearly two hundred babies there since starting MEND in Boston," Hope says. She smiles when Maura's eyes find hers again.

"Hope's done it all, babe," Jane says from behind. "So she's your mom. Who cares? Isn't it an asset for your mom to be the best in the city right now?"

Jane does not speak logic the way that Maura and Hope do; hers sounds rougher, but somehow more convincing. It is logic taken a step further: logic made useful because it is able to be understood by the people. Maura loves the way it sounds coming out of her mouth. "You are the best," she says to her mother. "But I just…"

"Maura," Hope pleads, but it is from a position of strength. She could rattle off countless statistics about birthing complications, the hospital's success rate, or even her own number of happy, healthy deliveries, but she doesn't. "I would be honored if you let me deliver this baby," she says, inching closer so that she can touch Maura's bicep, use her thumb to trace soft circles there, "If you… if you let me deliver my grandbaby."

Jane watches the grand slam sail over the fence. Hope had just hit it out in a way that she couldn't have planned for, even if she did orchestrate this whole thing. Hope had just given Maura the one thing she has never had: her very own family. She has the Rizzolis of course, the family that she and Jane share, _their_ family. But Hope has just delivered to her one of Maura's very own, a coveted thing that her Isles parents, in all their well-meaning but cold reserve, could never give. Had never given.

When Maura pauses before nodding softly, almost imperceptibly, Jane does an internal victory dance. She has just killed a lot of birds with one stone, the most important acquisition of that kill being the health and safety of her firstborn child.

Hope, however, is not so subdued. She takes Maura into a tight embrace, not made awkward by Maura's belly because she has hugged thousands of pregnant people throughout her life. They fit perfectly together, when Maura wraps her arms around Hope's shoulders. She won't cry in front of her, not yet, but she screws her eyes shut tight enough that the tears that want to fall do not.

When they break, Hope smiles and takes a sip of the tea that has been waiting for her, and Jane slides into the small spot between Maura and the arm of the sofa. "You are conniving," Maura whispers against the side of Jane's face, the words ghosting over her temple and writhing to her ear.

"This ok?" Jane asks in return, moving so that their noses are touching. Angela has since engaged Hope in a riveting discussion about grandchildren, and so they are alone, at least in spirit. She can be vulnerable. She can acknowledge the recklessness of her plan, even if she had known it would work. Maybe.

"It's perfect. Well, Dr. Rodin was perfect, but this is the perfect plan B," Maura replies.

"Maybe it's all for the best because for a minute there, with all the gushing, I thought you were going to run off with Dr. Rodin," teases Jane, wiggling her eyebrows up and down.

Maura glares. "I hope our baby is funnier than you are," she says sarcastically.

"Yeah well, I hope she's half as smart as you and Hope," Jane shoots back, in headstrong sincerity. Then, she wraps an arm around Maura's shoulders and kisses the side of her head. "I think this is the best Christmas present I'll ever get you."

Maura digs a finger into Jane's side, a punishment for the good-natured humor she was just given. To herself, she wonders how it is that Jane always knows the right thing to do, the right thing to say.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing a birthing scene is hard! Welcome back to Primogeniture. :)

As Maura looks at herself in the mirror, she tells herself that she wanted this - she reminds herself that the baby shoving her stomach into the back of her throat is _Jane's_ and therefore worth the burn. She's started a bath not because she needs to be clean but because she needs to sit, even if just for a moment, to dull the ache in her back, to rest as another squeeze takes over her hips.

She places her hands over the swell of her belly, so large that she hadn't even been able to close her silk robe - the baby has dropped, has been engaged for a week now, and she tries so desperately to reach back into the past for those wisps of naive want. Because now, it feels like her belly is going to burst open and she would love nothing more than to strangle every Rizzoli that was born with a full head of hair.

Especially Jane.

She'd scoffed, turned up her nose when Barry Frost had suggested babies born with full heads of hair caused heartburn, but she's been suffering from it now for so long, that she's willing to hold onto any cause if it means she can _do_ something about it. Even if, in this case, the only thing she can do is blame Jane for the number that all this extra gastric acid is enacting on her esophagus.

This is what she does now. The hormones that are softening the ligaments between her pelvic bones are also running wild in her brain - one moment she clings to Jane as her bright spot during these last, agonizing few weeks, and the next moment she finds her entirely at fault for the rebellion of her body.

Jane to her credit, takes it all in stride. _It takes two,_ she often says. S _he's mine, but to be fair, you were the one who wanted her in there._ And Maura has to concede that fact. Their baby is driving her crazy in that very uniquely Jane way, but it's also the truest testament to the success of her plan, the consummation of her deepest desire: a firstborn for a firstborn. She has carried Jane's heir to term.

And that, she thinks as she turns off the water and steps away from the full length mirror to drop her robe, makes all the GERD and the much more recent cramping worth it. She moves her head from one side to the other, rolling her neck, breathing in deeply. Her blood oxygenates, and for a moment, she forces herself into hyperawareness. She catalogues the tiredness of her eyes, the soreness of her spine, the tenderness of her breasts, the agonizing stretch of skin over her belly. She all but whimpers when she leans into the slow spreading of her hips - it feels like being torn apart slowly, millimeters at a time over the span of hours. But, she knows that life will be much easier if she accepts the pain, deals with it, rather than tries to stifle it.

She's a doctor; she's had a pelvic floor exercise regimen for the entirety of her pregnancy, of course. So, she tenses and releases once, just to make sure she's still got it down, and then she steps toward the tub to nestle into the warm water. Before she can, however, there is a sickening, wet splat on the tile just below her. She feels the slow trickle now, between her legs, and steels herself to look down: the puddle is small, murky and colorless, and _definitely_ amniotic fluid.

 _Shit_.

"Jane?"

* * *

Jane sits at the desk in her office, hair pulled up into a ponytail and her face on her palm. She reviews the facts in the case of the murder of Mr. Robert Duncan, a rich man, a lawyer, who defended high-powered business types from fraud charges and slept around on his wife. Reasons to kill him abound, except that his wife has produced an air-tight alibi, and the guy she likes for the brutal stabbing is just as rich and just as smarmy, one of Duncan's partners at the firm.

So why kill the guy? Her suspect doesn't have a wife or girlfriend for Duncan to sleep with, and is a more senior member of the office, with a fatter paycheck. She needs to ascertain what exactly would make a man stab another man thirty-seven times if it isn't money, jealousy, or love.

The ticking of the table clock mocks her, marches forward steadily right in front of her face, and reminds her that each moment she spends without knowing _why_ means she doesn't have leads to figure out the _how_. How to prove it was him, how to trap him into giving himself up or at least pointing them in the right direction. She snarls at the contraband file in front of her, the one not really supposed to leave BPD for her home, as though it is mocking her, too. She knows that she's approaching the investigation totally backwards, but she's got _nothing._

She's in a bad mood. It's why she's holed up in her study amongst the signatures of dozens of dead or retired baseball players and not with Maura. She doesn't want to subject Maura - sweet, exhausted, very hormonal Maura - to all her stymied emotion. Detective Rizzoli has a hunch and nowhere to go with it, nowhere for it to take her except down in the dumps. Usually, she lets it take them both into bed, where she'd get out a little aggression and Maura would get a little feisty in return. That usually assuages her.

But that's not an option with a fiancee who is nine months pregnant and wavers between adoration of Jane and repulsion by her. Jane is ninety-nine percent sure the difference is the heartburn. So, she stays here, listens to the rain pelt the window and to the clock laugh at her, and swallows thickly at the silence of the rest of the house.

Until she _thinks_ she hears her own name. She gets up, pulls the hem of her old crewneck sweatshirt down from where it had ridden up above her waist, and cracks her toes in black socks as she walks over to the door to open it.

Then her name is clearer, and coming from her bedroom. "Jane?" The fear she hears in it quickens her heartbeat and her steps. Her pajama pants are swishing as she trots toward the room, and then she stops in the doorway of the en suite.

"Hey," she says, as placidly as she can, observing the full tub. "Water's gonna get cold."

Maura only stares at her and worries her lip, trying to think of how best to break the news.

Jane stares back, smiling only because she's a little bit confused. Then she looks down at Maura's feet. "Need me to help you in?" She asks, going to Maura's side and putting her hand on her arm. "I got you. Usually you don't get water everywhere _before_ you get in. First try must have been unsuccessful," she says, and then steps forward.

"Jane, don't," Maura says, but it's too late. Jane's foot is squarely in the puddle. "That's not water. Well, it's colloquially referred to as water _sometimes_ , but it's actually a collection of-"

"Oh my god," Jane interrupts, hands still on Maura. "Oh my _god_. That…" she pauses, lifting up her foot to inspect the wet spot that has made the ball of her foot darker black than anywhere else on her sock, wiggling her toes because that's really all she can think of to do. "That was… in you. And it means…"

"It means we need to get ready to go soon," Maura says pointedly, grabbing fistfuls of Jane's sweatshirt and forcing eye contact.

Jane blanches. "Soon? How soon? It's rainin' cats and dogs out there!" she says, breathless. Her eyes dart around the bathroom for something, anything to anchor her, anything beyond Maura, whose body is in the process of changing their lives forever.

Maura smoothes the fabric she had just bunched in her palm. Calm, she reminds herself, for herself and for Jane, because she had known Jane would be like this when the time came, and the time is here. And Jane is fast approaching a quiet kind of hysterical. The next stage will most definitely involve raised voices. So… _calm_. She breathes in for four seconds, and holds for seven. Then, as she is about to exhale for eight, a telltale wave of pain inches down from her belly button, undulating, slithering sinisterly to her thighs.

Jane notices the interrupted breathing and the wince. "Maura? You al-"

"Ssh!" Maura whispers through clenched teeth, and her eyes are far off. She looks like this when she's calculating something at work, such as blood alcohol content or the distance of a victim's fall. Jane knows the look, so she obeys. "Thirty seconds," Maura finally says, gazing back at Jane.

Jane, who is clearly confused. "What?"

"The contraction. It was about thirty seconds long," Maura answers. She closes her eyes and huffs. "They've been growing in intensity and duration for awhile now. So to answer your question, six, twelve hours? Maybe a little longer? We should try to get some sleep."

"Sleep? Sleep? How the hell am I supposed to sleep knowin' she's on the way?!" The yelling begins faster than Maura anticipates. "And what do you mean they've been growing? You've been having them and you didn't tell me?! I've been like two doors down all day!"

Jane masks her shaking with annoyance and Maura pulls her in for a crushing embrace by the shoulders. "You really need to calm down," she says firmly, waiting for Jane to deepen their hug just the way she likes, the way that accommodates their child between them, but still brings them close together.

Jane is still stiff, even though Maura is hugging her and Maura is naked. "I'm calm! It's my imagination that's-"

Maura interrupts her. "You need to calm down _for me_. I am going to become incrementally less calm as this whole process unfolds, and I need you to pick up the slack," she reiterates, pulling back to knock her forehead to Jane's.

She's just given Jane what she needs: a task, a way to protect her. "Got it," Jane says quietly, but not before they kiss. "Sorry, you're right. It's just… _amuninni, nna chiova?_ " she gripes. _C'mon, in the rain?_ "She's sure got that Rizzoli inconvenience down already."

"We should just be glad it's not snowing, Jane," Maura replies, smiling when Jane tries not to.

"I _guess_ ," Jane rolls her eyes and finally gives into that grin. It's accompanied by moisture in her eyes. "She's really coming, huh? This is it."

"Hours from now, she'll be here," Maura affirms, arms still wrapped around Jane's warm, sturdy shoulders. Jane wants this as much as she does. Jane, despite her anxiety, has been rattled by joy - it spills out of her heartbeat and out of the curve of her lips.

"Alright, then. What do you need me to do? Help you into the bath?" Jane asks, and suddenly she is ready for action. For orders.

"No, I can't now. Drain it for me? Then I'm going to call Hope, and I want you to gather everything we talked about and put it by the door. While we both have our wits about us," Maura says, picking her most comfortable loungewear from the shelf closest to the bathtub she had wanted so sorely to dip into.

"Yup, drain and gather. Got it. Can I take a shower first, though? I gotta foot full of baby," Jane asks, her face scrunched up as she realizes her toes are still wet.

Maura laughs, open and full. "Yes, you may."

* * *

It is eight hours later, nearly three in the morning, and the lack of sleep has beaten Jane into an eerie sort of quiet. She's staring intently at Maura, who is sitting across from her in a hospital chair, holding her arms as they breathe together, now in a hospital gown covered by a light sweater. Jane thinks this whole yoga breathing thing is all a little woo-woo, but Maura had insisted and Hope had lauded its benefits. So, here she is, _Ujjayi-_ ing with the best of them.

But Maura's face falters as they work together. Another contraction assaults her and it interrupts her inhales with a sharp wince. She slams her eyes shut. "I'll… admit that even though I knew intellectually how intense this would be, it still hurts like hell."

Jane smirks, but it is small. She shifts her tired hips in the vinyl seat beneath her. "Maybe you should take Hope up on that epidural," she says, and the gravel in it makes Maura melt, makes her forget her splintering pelvis for just a little bit.

"No, no. I'm going to do it," Maura shakes her head when the worst of her contraction subsides. She stares down at the strip of ankle visible right at the cuff of Jane's sweatpants, just above her white Air Max 270s with the black trim, a pre-baby gift she had bought for herself. Maura smirks at the shoes and the memories they bring, memories of Jane tearing open a delivery box on the kitchen counter and proudly proclaiming herself 'ready for combat.' Maura had only shaken her head and wagged her eyebrows, more than accustomed to shoe-shopping during the most stressful parts of her life, too. And how could she fault Jane when she _looked_ like that? Now she wore an all-black Nike sweatsuit like funeral garb, so celebratory of the loss of her current life through the life they were both about to gain. _Handsome_.

"That's what I said when I had Jane," another voice carries from the corner of the room, across to the other side of the bed, and Angela rolls her neck on the headrest of the recliner. One eye is on both Jane and Maura, the other closed. They think she's been asleep this whole time, but clearly, she's been listening, too. "And by God, I did it. But it was the worst pain I have _ever_ experienced. I'm pretty sure it's why she came out so ornery."

Maura chuckles when Jane grumbles. "Because you were in so much pain?"

"Yes!" Angela says, laughing as she wakes up a little. "And that pain put me in such a foul mood. I was _mad_. I slapped Frank," she relays the story, his question as to whether labor could be _that_ bad, and then all three women are laughing.

"Maybe he deserved it then," Jane snarks. She winks at Maura, who breaks their forearm hold to run thumbs over Jane's swollen nasojugal folds. "Although, if the pain is that bad, I wouldn't blame you for slappin' me. If you need to."

"You _don't_ deserve it," Maura says, but then the reprieve ends and cries out at the sudden sharpness in her abdomen. "Shit."

Jane's eyes blow open and she resumes their grip, letting Maura squeeze her arms, but totally petrified because the contractions are definitely coming closer together now.

"Up, baby," Angela says, and she's at Jane's side in seconds. Jane stands up, holding Maura until Angela can cross over and then they transition seamlessly. "No shame in getting that shot, Maura," she says softly, rubbing the tops of Maura's arms under her light gray cardigan.

"No!" Maura responds through gritted teeth. Jane flinches, but Angela just grins through it, letting Maura grab her tight. Taking nothing personally. "No. I'm not doing that."

Angela pats Maura's knees so that she can put her feet in Angela's lap. She does. Maura realizes, feels it in the bottom of her ribcage like a pleasurable weight, that this is her daughter's _grandmother_ \- and there is no one better suited for the role. No one rolls gnocchi like her, no one cuts the crust off of sandwiches like her, no one loves like her. "That's your call, honey. I support you either way. Just want to make sure you have all your options on the table, ok? I'm sure baby number two will be a different story."

Jane sputters. "Jesus, Ma. Maybe wait til baby one is here before you start puttin' any more in her," she says. She sits on the edge of the bed and crosses her arms, but she is flushed and happy. Very tired, but happy.

"Alright, alright," Angela says, backing off, but she notices how the thought of more of this ignites Jane, makes her come alive even with zero hours of sleep. Emotion pricks at her eyelids when she sees her oldest about to see _her_ oldest for the first time.

" _Agh_ ," Maura brings the both of them back to the current moment with her groan. "Press the call button," she orders anybody who will listen, the foot rub she's getting from Angela having no effect on her agony. "Get my mother."

Jane jumps up and slams the button with haste. "Everything ok, Maura?" she asks nervously.

Maura gives her the closest thing to a smile she can. "Help me to bed. I think it's time to push."

* * *

Hope is in jeans and a turtleneck sweater, looking unnaturally refreshed at four AM, and Maura hates her for it. She is sure that this hate has nothing to do with the fact that Hope's hand is now inside of her, poking around her wide-open cervix.

"We're at ten," Hope says brightly to the three women in the room. She even looks back to the curtain separating the main birthing area from the bathroom, where she knows Frankie is standing, because she can see the toes of his New Balance shoes poking towards them. Jane had called him as soon as Maura decided she was ready to push. She'd excused herself out to the hall and paced until she was winded. _It's happening, Frankie._ She said, not bothering with a greeting.

 _For real? That's amazing, Janie._ His voice had crackled with sleep and confusion.

_Yeah, yeah. It's gonna be great. But I need you here. As fast as you can._

_Wait what? Why? Is everything ok?_

_Everything's perfect. But I just, I'm gonna be a mess and I need…_

_Me. Yeah, I got you. I'll be there in ten._

Jane wants to smile back at Hope, but Maura's patience for pleasantries has rapidly deteriorated and she's pretty sure that if she does, Maura'll take it as a personal affront. Instead, she keeps her loose hold on Maura's hand up at the head of the bed, and tries to stare a hole through that curtain so Frankie can give her some strength. She only sees the top of his Red Sox hat moving back and forth under his nervous hand. _Yikes,_ she thinks _._ Maybe she's on her own.

Maura licks her lips and her tone is curt. "Fetal positioning?"

"We're sitting pretty, Maura. LOA," Hope smirks at her knowingly.

Maura can't help herself. "Right up against the iliopubic eminence?" she asks, reminding herself not to shut her eyes too tightly as her contractions attempt to split her, starting between her legs.

Jane and Angela share a glance. Jane even shrugs when Angela asks _what the hell are they talking about?_ with her eyes.

"Dr. Isles?" Hope calls out sweetly as she removes her gloves and sanitizes.

"Yes?" Maura answers back. She's disarmed in the moment, because this is Dr. Martin, world-renowned obstetrician, yes, but this is also her _mother,_ and her mother is using her title in a way that the Rizzolis nearby never could: as an equal.

Hope leans in and pats Maura's thigh, satisfied with the effect she's had. "Stop minding my business," she says, but then she winks. "I'm going to scrub in. When I come back, get ready to push."

Maura blushes at the admonition. Hope leaves, and the atmosphere is tense, just because no-one really knows what to say, how Maura will take it, and for good reason. Jane just settles for kissing the loose bun on the top of her head, letting Maura squeeze her hand when needed.

Frankie calls out finally, when there's been a minute or two of breathing and pained grunts. "I'm over here with my catcher's mitt if ya need me, Maura," he says, so North End that they giggle.

The tension breaks and he snorts. Maura loves the sound. "Absolutely, not, Frankie. You're not to cross that curtain at any time," she says, trying to communicate her seriousness, but she's still laughing despite herself. "But thank you."

"Just toss it to me and I'll take it from here, brother," Jane says, and she and Frankie laugh in that identical way they do, deep and cutting to all who hear it because it excludes anyone but the two of them in its cadence. Singular. Rizzoli.

Frankie lets his die out first. "Seriously, I'm not sure why you called me to come, but I'm honored. I'll do what… _ugh_ … whatever you ask," he says, choking up. "I love you guys."

Jane sniffles loudly, and twitches her closed lips, because otherwise she's going to start crying, too. "Save it. We can all get emotional _after_ the baby comes. Until then, it's game time."

"Jesus, Janie. Let your brother have a moment," Angela scolds, using the hand that is not holding Maura's right to threaten a smack on the head.

Jane ducks. "Really, Ma? Physical abuse in the birthing suite?"

"Ssh!" Maura grinds out, and then they both straighten up when she groans, loudly.

Hope comes hustling back in, now in dark blue scrubs and tennis shoes. "We're going to take advantage of your support system, honey, and they're going to push up on your legs, instead of my RNs," she says. "You're having a contraction now, do you want to use it?"

Maura pushes her head back against her pillow, the one that Jane packed for her from home, and then the tears come in earnest. "God, I don't know," she wails, putting her arm over her eyes, embarrassed at the sheer amount of emotion in the room, coming from her. At least the curtains are drawn and it's dark outside, so she has some kind of cloak. Everything is just so fucking _painful_ that she can't clear her head.

"It's alright," Hope says gently, in a tone that only practice can bring. "Take a minute to breathe, and think." Maura chooses not to dwell on exactly how she knows just what to say and when.

Jane leans in close. "Hear that? Use that big brain of yours and think, baby. We got time. We all got time, ok? There's no rush," she reassures between kisses to the fine hair on the side of Maura's head, surprised she's allowed to.

"Thank you," Maura says sincerely, taking stock of Jane, Angela, and Frankie, as if verifying one last time that they're there, and then she makes her decision. "Next one, let's go."

Jane smirks in the handsome way that Maura adores, higher on one side than the other, and the picture - completed by her black curls wild, down, around her head, and her Nike sweatsuit - gives Maura strength. "Yeah?" asks Jane, and Maura nods resolutely. "Ok then, let's fucking go."

* * *

" _Agh…_ fuck!" Maura screams well into her six or seventh push, and she somehow manages to sound exactly like herself and like her Bostonian fiancee all at once. She's sweaty and she's red and she's beyond exhausted. She's also pretty sure she's being ripped in half by her baby and the two women hiking her knees up toward her face.

Hope stands at the foot of the bed and looks on at the progress happily. "You're opening your introitus, which means we're almost there. But you have to use your entire body, alright?"

Maura sighs because she's not sure if she can, and Jane senses it. "Ok, look, you can do it, a'right? Quittin' isn't an option here. It's late, like the thirteenth inning, and you've been in the whole game. But there's a runner on third, and he's dancin' around, and a well-placed hit sends us home, babe. Send us home, bring her home," she commands, voice booming through all the huffing, beeping, and cussing in the room. Maura looks at her, a mixture of confused and… maybe inspired?

Angela rolls her eyes. "Give it a rest, Coach Rizzoli!" she grits through closed teeth, as if she doesn't want Maura to hear. Nevermind that Maura's face is a foot from her own. "Ok, baby, what she's _trying_ to say is we're in the home stretch, and all this will be worth it, worth the pain you're in now. So give it all you got."

Hope laughs. "I quite like Jane's metaphor. A few more pushes and we can all bring her home. So, let's do it, shall we?"

Soon they all crowd around, shouting encouragement, giving instructions, chanting general iterations of 'let's go!' and 'you got this!'. Maura screws her eyes shut, and pushes against the pressure threatening to break her. Her hold on Jane's fingers is so tight that at the end of her most recent push, she tries to let go out of sheer mercy.

"Uh uh," Jane says, mouth close to Maura's ear but eyes down below to where a nurse is holding up a mirror for them all to watch. "I shot myself, remember? This is nothin'. Actually, what you'regoin' through probably feels similar to that. Just know I can handle it."

Maura exhales loudly, puffing her cheeks and her lips out with the force of her breath. She wants to ask herself who had convinced her that childbirth was a good idea, but the answer is standing next to her now, tall and young and an endless font of strength. "Stop being romantic. It's distracting me," she says to Jane.

"Yes ma'am. Ready for just a couple more?" Jane asks, and for a moment, all other sensations cease. There is no more blinding fluorescent, no more scratchy hospital gown on her shoulders, no more deafening hollers from her family. There is just Jane, and just Maura, and just their eyes on each other.

"I'm ready," Maura says, one last time, and then she pushes again, like she's trying to plunge her heart through the soles of her feet.

Angela starts to tear up. "Oh honey, I see her head! She's got a full head of hair!"

Hope is squatting just at the right angle, hands on that full head of hair, with the focus of a genius on her features. "Just a little more, she's coming!"

Jane's free hand pounds the side of the bed and she screams "Go, go, go, go!"

And at that, at her demand, their baby is out. Face to the air, mouth open wide, _out_. Out and then in Maura's waiting arms, Maura who is kissing her forehead even though it's full of fluids and her own blood, and who whimpers as the nurses take her away to be weighed, cleaned, and oxygenated.

Jane's hands are immediately in her own hair and she's grimacing, shaking, tears running freely down her face. "Is she breathing?" she calls out to the nurses, who have a mask over the baby's face as they wipe her body.

Hope doesn't turn from her new position at the weighing table, mostly so that she can pull herself together before facing the family. She knows they won't know the difference between joy and agony, though she is made up of only the former. It overwhelms her and guides all her movements. "It's routine, Jane. The oxygen is routine. She's breathing."

And as if to reassure them all, the baby wails into the mask, her cry strong and from deep within her lungs. It convinces everyone else in the room to resume their tears, too. She's soon wrapped up, cap securely on her black hair, and then she is handed to Maura by Hope. Maura attempts to regulate her own staccato breaths, the back of her mind screaming about attachment and a mother's calm. She can't quite achieve it on her own, so she calls out. "Jane?"

"Yeah," Jane says, and in an instant she is hovering over the bed, face millimeters from the both of them. She barely manages the kiss that she knows Maura is asking for, because apparently now everything makes her emotional.

Maura seems pleased, however. "We did it," she says, her voice hoarse and proud at the same time.

"Uh no, you did it," Jane replies, unable to resist putting her nose on her baby's head any longer. She inhales deeply, just at the roll of the beanie above her ear, and shudders. The feeling is new, of course, the scent is new, but it also resonates with something familiar and ancient within her. When Angela places her hands on Jane's back and rubs vigorously, she realizes the feeling is the same.

"She looks just like you," Angela whispers, her own sniffles louder than her voice. "What do you think?"

Jane lets the tears fall again, because only Maura can see them. She takes several long moments to answer because she doesn't trust herself not to break as soon as she speaks. "Agh," she vocalizes, the mucus in her throat saying more than words ever could. She tries again when her brother comes over, hiccuping with his own bluster of happiness. "It's just... _Minchia, ch'e bedda,_ huh?" she finally says, her smile cracking her face open with Frankie's contagious boyishness. _Shit, she's beautiful, huh?_

Angela finally does smack the back of her head. "The first time your daughter sees you and you gotta cuss?" she shakes her head, glad that Maura is chuckling tiredly, and then reaches over the bed for her son's hand. She takes Jane's too, and her voice wavers under the weight of three generations, the newest one all of a few minutes old. "But you're right. She is beautiful."

Hope waits for the appropriate moment, and then requests the baby back so that a few more standard screenings and assessments can be done. The Rizzolis sigh in longing and lack already. Maura looks as though she's about to cry again, so Frankie takes her face in his bearish hands and kisses her three, four times against the side of her head. Hope knows she's no replacement for the child on the other side of the room, but she sits on the edge of the bed and places her hand on Maura's blanket-covered knee anyway, rubbing deep, calming circles. "So, does she have a name?"

Maura looks to Jane, who smirks with her lips closed and just nods. She then grabs Frankie's fingers and holds them tight, making sure she's connected to each sibling before she answers. " _Chiarina,"_ she says to Hope as morning light begins to filter through the hospital room window, _"Chiarina Francesca._ "


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a short update as I work on something new. I actually had like 5/6ths of this written back in November, before I wrote chapters six and seven. Hopefully it feels like it flows still. Enjoy!

Maura sets the still steaming plate of eggs and toast in front of Jane's tired face. One of them had been able to sleep the night before, and Maura counts it as her very own personal blessing from whatever deity Jane prays to that it was her. She feels, for the first time in over a week, refreshed and at least somewhat ready to face the day.

Jane, however, looks ready to set foot in the grave just so that she never has to wake up again. She tries to smile at Maura in thanks for the food, but it's more like a grimace and the circles under her eyes are so dark that people might start to wonder if she'd been jumped. She eyes the fork next to the plate, pining for it - it is _so close_ , but grabbing it would mean turning and taking her foot off of the carseat on the floor, and no longer rocking the baby in it.

It doesn't really matter, though, because Chiarina Francesca's wails echo so loudly around them that they're probably waking up the entire neighborhood. Jane's autopilot response of jostling the car seat isn't really helping, but she says " _shhh… zìttiti, picciridda, pi fauri…_ " anyway. _Be quiet, baby, please._ She's begging, really, and there are tears in her voice, too.

And Maura, finally able to see her fiancée with fresh eyes for the first time since coming home from the hospital, melts. She sits next to Jane, who is at the head of the table, and rubs wide circles on the taut muscles of her back, flexed and ready to fight, fly, or freeze. The sheer amount of noise that has invaded their lives frazzles Jane's nerves and she looks raw, exposed. "You haven't spoken English in eight days. I can't say I was expecting that," she teases lightly, wondering if Jane will understand, in her sleep-deprived state, why Chiarina is irate.

"Nonsense, we're speakin' English right now _,"_ Jane groans, seeing the way Maura's robe parts just enough, torn between ogling her or ogling the cooling eggs on her plate.

"I meant to her," Maura points to their child, a warm cap covering Chiarina's already wild black hair. She rises gingerly, still sore from bringing Rizzoli life into the world, and picks Chiarina up to nestle her into the space created by her loosening garment. The crying lessens, and then stops. "She wants you, needs you. When she's crying like that, it's because she needs lots of skin to skin contact to form proper attachment."

Jane watches in amazement as Maura takes Chiarina back with her to the chair she had just left, the baby now completely quiet and falling asleep. "Jesus. You're like the baby whisperer. I think she resents me for not being you this morning."

Maura laughs. "I have a medical degree," she punts the compliment, "development sort of just comes with the territory. You'll learn. And when she gets old enough to need guidance in social skills, and sports, and all of the other extracurricular activities, I'll learn. Did she eat?"

"About an hour ago," Jane croaks, spearing eggs onto her fork. "She's fussy about the bottle, though. Prefers you. I think, uh, around two ounces, when all was said and done," she reports, knowing Maura would want particulars.

"She already eats like you. Like all of you," Maura says with affection when Jane moans at the taste of hot food and sweet jam.

"Ravenously?" Jane asks a little embarrassedly with her full mouth, and then the smile comes: small and with extra lines around her eyes.

"A lot," Maura clarifies. "Two ounces is a lot for someone who's only a week old. But maybe not for a Rizzoli. All three of you have an uncanny metabolism."

As if to prove the point, Jane is caught shoveling in half a slice of toast, her chewing impacted by the sheer amount of it in her cheek. "'S always been that way," she says, muffled and distorted, but still expecting Maura to understand her.

And she does. "I know. And it's a good trait to have. I'm glad to see my foresight in choosing you is already paying off."

Jane blushes and it serves in contrast to the darker tissues and blood vessels just under her eyes. "Yeah, well, I'm glad you picked me, too. It would have killed me to see you do this with anyone else."

"When you finish that, go upstairs and nap. You get morose when you're sleep deprived," says Maura, mercifully. "I can handle her for a couple of hours."

Jane nods, too tired to deny it. "It's been a rough forty-eight hours."

Maura smiles. "I'm sure. The previous forty-eight were rough for me. But the turn-taking helps." She crosses to the sitting room where she has left the baby wrap. She nearly squeals when she realizes that _chores_ may even get done today as she pulls Chiarina close to her chest. "Next time, wrap her in this when you come to the table. If she's not hungry and she's not in pain, she won't cry when she's next to you."

"Noted," says Jane, standing up to rinse her empty plate.

Maura leans against the doorframe with the sleeping baby, between their dining room and the spacious kitchen where Jane starts the dishwasher. Jane is in gray sweatpants and a very faded Red Sox hoodie, her hair shows all four of her fitful hours of sleep between the past two days. Maura usually hates the "Dri Fit" script across the tops of her socks, right over her toes, only tolerates the swish on the elastic just below her calf. Socks shouldn't have print on them, she often says, but it completes the picture of Jane's uneven pant cuffs and pushed up sleeves so perfectly that she decides she loves it. She smiles goofily; she can't help it.

Jane notices and walks over to her. She stands about a foot away, and bends forward to kiss Maura with fervor. Maura whimpers when they break apart. "Don't wanna disturb the princess," Jane reasons, pointing to the sleeping baby.

"Come closer," Maura insists, one hand still rubbing at the nape of Jane's neck. "She'll like it, trust me. You're very warm."

Jane accepts this, and then her gaze changes. It is darker than Maura expects, predatory in a way that she recognizes, but she hasn't seen in at least a month. When they kiss again, Jane is at her full height. The way Maura has to lift her head up to help the four inches of difference between them fills her belly with sparks of desire, especially when Jane tastes like raspberry jam and instant coffee.

For the first time, she can tell, Jane is letting herself _want_ again. And that's dangerous, but she can't help but stoke the fire by moving her hand to flatten against Jane's long side under the fabric of her sweater. She knows it's cruel, she does. But she does it anyway, and it makes Jane hug her, then knead the swell of her behind with desperation.

"Slow down," heaves Maura, breaking them apart after a long, wet few moments. "You know we can't."

Jane laments. " _Ugh_."

"I know. But you have at least eight more weeks," Maura commiserated. "At least. How do you even have a shred of libido left, anyway? You've been up for two whole days."

"Because it's already been a month!" Jane whispered, careful of the baby sleeping between the two of them. "How am I supposed to do this for two more of 'em?"

"Masturbation?" Maura shrugs, a twinkle in her eye.

Jane chuckles sarcastically. "Ha ha, Maura. That part I can handle. But I wanna do it with _you._ "

"No, you don't," Maura shakes her head with a smile. When Jane starts to protest, she revises. "Not yet, you don't. I'm cramping, and sweating, especially at night. And the discharge is-"

Before she can finish, Jane covers Maura's mouth with her hand. "Alright alright, I get it. Having a baby is gross. It's just… it's been awhile."

"We established that, Jane," Maura says, confused and through the trap of Jane's fingers. "And I offered you the only plausible solution. I can help, but…"

"No, that's not what I mean," Jane blushes and hastily explains. "I, I love her," she says, looking down at Chiarina, "I really do."

"I know you do," replies Maura, "more than just about anything. I can already tell."

"Yeah." Jane nods. "I'm so happy she's here, _finally_. But she's just kinda crampin' my style. I mean, she's quite literally between us right now. I haven't gotten to be close to you since before Christmas. I haven't, you know, squeezed you tight, or put my hand up your skirt, or… Jesus. I am sounding super selfish. But-"

" _T'ammancu,"_ Maura says in a Sicilian that sounds so crisp and refined coming from her. _You miss me._

Jane blinks several times in surprise. " _Se. M'ammanchi._ You been practicing?"

Maura wiggles her eyebrows proudly. " _N'anticchia,_ " she replies, _a little_. "It's been easier to pick up the past week or so," she says with a wink.

"Well stop. It's not helping me be unattracted to you," Jane quips with a dour look.

Maura laughs. "That's not what I want. I want you to be very attracted to me."

"But that's counterproductive to the waiting patiently part."

"I never said I wanted you to wait _patiently_ ," Maura says. She sees what Jane means because she wants nothing more to erase all the obstacles between them and embrace her. But, there is a Chiarina-sized roadblock in the way. "I want you to wait impatiently. I want you to burn with longing while you wait for me."

Jane pouts and she looks so pitiful. And cute. "I've never known you to be cruel, Maura. But that's cruel."

Maura smirks as she shrugs. The bounce of her right arm brings Chiarina's head up just a little. "Maybe. But won't it be worth it?"

"What, the torture?"

"The anticipation. We could shave a few weeks off of the timeline, sure. But you wouldn't be able to do half the things I know you want to. I wouldn't be able to do them."

"Go on…" Jane goads, scowling, but her interest still piqued.

Maura doubts that Jane knows exactly what she's asking for, and far be it from her to withhold it. "Well…" she began seriously, leaning in as if to share a secret.

Jane vibrates with excitement, suspense. She covers Chiarina's tiny ears, the baby's whole head cradled in her large hands, and nods. "Yeah?"

"You'll just have to wait and see, won't you?" Maura teases. She can't help the font of laughter at Jane's crushed expression and her already fully-bloomed concern for Chiarina's innocence. Even if Chiarina wouldn't understand a word they say.

"Maura!" Jane whispers harshly, through clenched teeth.

Maura sighs. Pangs of want start pulsating at her hips, too, and she knows it's going to be a very long two months if Jane looks this handsome with no sleep and clothes as askew as they are. She steps up on her toes just a bit, hand on Jane's bicep, and presses her lips against the shell of Jane's ear. "Do you remember that night, before I was pregnant, when you made love to me on my vanity? You left handprints all over the mirror behind me."

Jane's affirmative response is her shaky exhale and a squeeze of Maura's ass. She remembers, and her body does, too. It thrusts forward of its own volition, slowly but steadily. Once, but enough to make an impression. "That was fun."

"Mmm," Maura agrees, and this time, _she_ covers Chiarina's ears. "It was. I think next time, we should try to break it," she whispers.

Jane groans, and she's about to kiss Maura again, lips open and tongue swiping over them, when Chiarina wails into the early morning air. "Are you serious?" she snaps, pulling away and digging the heels of her hands into her eyes.

" _Aspetta_ ," Maura says lovingly, and Jane's face turns red at the word, in a tongue she hadn't expected them to share. But Maura picks things up like a sponge and of course this is no different. The linguistic communion sets her blood aflame, but nevertheless, the command still stands. _Wait_. "You won't be disappointed, I promise."


End file.
